Module 3

Gather – Pre-Class Work – RJ Show and Tell

Write the prompt before the session begins: 

  • “I see…” – What RJ issues do you see happening in your example?
  • “I think…” – What do you think is happening in this situation?
  • “I wonder…” – Wonder to yourself: How this could be different?

Ground – Opening and Check In

Our opening is a meditation from Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Bethesda, MD. This was originally created for their Service on Reproductive Justice in 2022 and has deep wisdom to ground those of us deepening our engagement with Reproductive Justice.

Meditation from January 30, 2022 Service on Reproductive Justice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q0YFcit13E 

Check In

  • Introduction instructions in the chat: Name, Pronouns, What is one word or sound that represents how you are feeling or arriving?
  • Are there any themes or pressing content that came up in your RJ Show and Tell discussions?

Study – SACReD Principles and Reproductive Justice

SACReD’s Guiding Principles

This community affirms the following guiding principles:

  • The dignity of sacred bodies and the moral agency of all people deserve respect, including the bodily autonomy and agency of women, queer people, gender-expansive people, people with disabilities, immigrants, Indigenous populations, and people of color who have often been denied this respect.
  • All creation is good and includes a beautiful diversity of sacred bodies,  sexualities, and reproductive journeys.  
  • Pregnancy can be unintentional, but parenting is a sacred journey that requires intentional discernment. Prayerful decisions to have children, to not have children, or to end a pregnancy are equally moral.

Brief Group Discussion

  • What are your initial thoughts about these Guiding Principles? 
  • Do you feel comfortable with the Guiding Principles right now? Why or why not? 
  • On a scale of 1-10, how likely would your faith community be to affirm the Guiding Principles today?
  • What part(s) feel sticky to you? What questions linger before you could say “yes!” to the Guiding Principles?

Reproductive Justice

Find the video and website on the Resources Page. After watching the video, give participants 3-5 minutes to read the Visioning New Futures for Reproductive Justice Declaration.

Virtual Facilitation: Share the video and website by sharing your screen to the link or embedding the video within the slide deck for this session. Invite participants to turn off their cameras while watching or listening. Encourage them to journal, doodle, or fidget if that helps them to listen and process.

Discussion Questions

  • Why was it necessary to develop Reproductive Justice, as distinct from the reproductive rights approach?
  • How does Reproductive Justice ground in human rights principles?
  • How do ethical and liberation principles manifest in the Reproductive Justice vision articulated by SisterSong and their RJ partners?
  • How does Reproductive Justice resonate with your and your community’s religious values and justice commitments?

Engage – Intersectional Reproductive Oppression

Discussion Questions

  • Who can summarize the video and lessons learned? 
  • What did you reflect on in your journal? 
  • What did you learn from this video?
  • Who benefits from these policies?
  • Who is harmed by these policies?
  • Who has power and agency in these stories? 
  • How are reproductive moral judgments stereotypes, and stigmas showing up for each person? 
  • How are the tenets of Reproductive Justice upheld or violated in the stories you heard in the video?

Case Studies

Facilitator Instructions:

Ask participants to get into small groups of 2-3 based on which article they read and want to discuss more. Once in their small groups, they should choose a scribe to capture the group’s feedback and someone to report back to the whole group. This can be captured in their journal, on wall paper, or in the chat, if virtual. The person who reports back should be prepared to give a brief summary of the article before going through their group’s insights and answers to the reflection questions. These questions may bring up a lot of

discussion. Facilitators need to be prepared to hold the discussion bravely.

Virtual Facilitation: Use breakout rooms to create small groups according to the instructions above.

Remember that Reproductive Justice is the human right to: 

  1. Maintain personal bodily autonomy, 
  2. Have children, 
  3. Not have children, and 
  4. Parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.

Review a particular case and consider:

  • What are the intersectional oppression issues in the case?
  • What tenets of Reproductive Justice are violated in the case?
  • How would a Reproductive Justice ethics approach improve the circumstances in the case? What concrete things would change and why?

In small groups, and then with the whole group, discuss:

  • How similar or different would your religious tradition’s ethical approach to the case be, compared to a Reproductive Justice approach? 
  • If there are differences, what are they exactly, and how central to your tradition’s core values are those differences?

Send – Looking Ahead and Closing

Homework

  1. Prepare your RJ Show and Tell item
  2. Complete this journal prompt: Thinking about the depth of the Reproductive Justice agenda and your own faith community, reflect on how they are compatible together and where they differ. What needs to shift for your faith practice to be more aligned with the tenets of Reproductive Justice?

Closing Reading

On what would have been the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, Reproductive Justice leaders met to envision a new future for Reproductive Jusice. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective convened this summit. We will use a portion of the SisterSong Visioning New Futures (https://www.sistersong.net/visioningnewfuturesforrj) statement as a responsive reading for our closing. You can read it in unison, responsively, or have each person read a line.

We choose us. We invoke the spirit of our ancestors who cleared the path for us, the comrades who fight alongside us today, and those who will fight beyond us, who will become our greatest dreams.

We reclaim the demands of Reproductive Justice that our Black foremothers named nearly 30 years ago:

The human right to own our bodies and control our future

The human right to have children

The human right to not have children, and

The human right to parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. 

We are still fighting for these rights to be real in our lives; we know things are not okay. We have a lot of work to do. 

We need you to join our fight so we can make this dream a reality.

How do you know if this movement is for you?

If you’ve ever felt shamed during conversations about sex, sexuality, or pregnancy instead of receiving the support and information you desired — this movement is for you.

If you have ever had abortions, thought about having an abortion, supported someone having an abortion, loved someone who has had abortions – this movement is for you.

If you’ve ever felt targeted or criminalized for your labor, including doing sex work for pay — this movement is for you.

If you’re a parent, a mama, an auntie, an abuela, a transgender dad – this movement is for you.

If you love to have sex and pleasure with consent – this movement is for you.

If you are a man, cisgender, straight, queer or transgender, who is ready to move with us and trust Black Women — this movement is for you.

If you’ve survived state, sexual, interpersonal, or other violence, and exploitation – this movement is for you.

If you are a person of faith – this movement is for you.

If you are undocumented – this movement is for you.

If you are queer, transgender, nonbinary, or gender-expansive – this movement is for you.

If you are a young person if you are an elder, or anywhere in between – this movement is for you.

If you are a healthcare provider who supports all the tenets of reproductive justice – this movement is for you.

If you are disabled or have not had your accessibility needs met in your community or in a medical space – this movement is for you.

If you know, from experience, how important it is to be able to vote, feed our families, be paid a livable wage, drink safe water, and live in safe and affordable housing – this movement is for you.

We need to keep our communities safe against the rising tide of hate and violence. We need to join in a global uprising for global liberation.

We will not be silenced. We will take up all the space we need. We will lead with love. We will reclaim our power for ourselves, our beautiful families, our children, and the generations to come.

Amen, Ameen, Amein, Aho, Axé oooo, and so it is.

Additional Resources

These are optional supplements intended to support participants and facilitators on A SACReD Journey.

For a deeper dive into Reproductive Justice and intersections with religion see the following:

  • Ross, Loretta and Rickie Solinger. Reproductive Justice: An Introduction. University of California Press, 2017.
    • Particularly the chapter “RJ and the Right to Parent”
  • Todd Peters, Rebecca and Margaret Kamitsuka. Abortion and Religion: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives. T & T Clark, 2023.
    • Particularly “A Womanist Theo-Ethic of Reproductive Justice” by Toni M. Bond
  • Ross, Loretta J., Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater Toure, eds. Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique. The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2017.
  • Bond, Toni M. Faithful Voices: Creating a Womanist Theo-Ethic of Reproductive Justice. Claremont School of Theology Press, 2020. https://archive.org/details/bond-faith-voices-womanist-theo-ethic-of-rj-4-1-20-final/mode/2up 
  • Todd Peters, Rebecca. Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice. Beacon Press, 2019. https://www.rebeccatoddpeters.com/trust-women 
  • Gumbs, Alexis Pauline, China Martens, and Mai’a Williams, eds. Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. PM Press, 2016. https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=746 

Fact Sheet: National Women’s Law Center – Shengwei Sun “National Snapshot: Poverty Among Women & Families” https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023_nwlc_PovertySnapshot-converted.pdf