ATTENTION PLEASE! We are in the process of updating all A SACReD Journey online resources. While most resources match the updated curriculum, there are some misalignments across the modules. We apologize for any frustration or complication this adds to your facilitation of the ASJ Curriculum. We aim to have all modules updated by early April. If you have questions please reach out to Kentina Washington-Leapheart: [email protected]. Thank you for being with us on this journey! 

Module 2: Reproductive Oppression & Reproductive Justice

Materials

Homework Videos

  1. Patriarchy:
  2. Race, Racism, and White Supremacy:
  3. Economic Exploitation 
  4. Intersectionality 

Gather – Opening and Check In

Opening

Sacred Wind, Come Blow on Us
Claudio Carvalhaes, Liturgies from Below: Praying with People at the End of the World (Abingdon Press, 2020), p. 33.

Sacred wind, come blow on us
Let us feel your presence

Holy Earth anchor us
Nourish our frames

Illuminating fire burn ever brighter
Reflect your truth

Life-giving water
Restore and baptize us

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

Alternative Opening:

Offer a prayer or reading from your own tradition that invites people into a vision of liberation, or select one from the bank found on the Resource Page.

Check In

Introduction instructions: Name, Pronouns, What is one word or sound that represents how you are feeling or arriving?

Ground – Understanding Intersectional Oppressions and Responses

Small Group Discussion

  • In your own life, what experiences do you have with these social injustices?
  • How has your faith tradition navigated these social systems?
  • What are the relationships between the videos’ topics and Reproductive Justice?
  • What questions do you have about what you watched?
  • What would you like to understand better?

Each group should prepare one person to share 1–2 major learnings from their group with the whole class.

Study – No Single Issues: Intersectionality & Reproductive Justice

Large Group Discussion

Find the parts of your social location on Worksheet 2.1 —Wheel of Power & Privilege. Your identity is the mix of the many parts of you.

  • What do you notice when you look at your list?
  • What privileges does the mix of your identity allow?
  • What types of oppressions do you experience?

What is Reproductive Justice?

Let’s hear that answer from one of the mothers of the Reproductive Justice Movement, Loretta J. Ross. As you watch the video, listen for connections with other justice movements, like racial justice, LGBTQIA+ justice, immigration, climate justice, reproductive rights, and social justice. How does this framework align or challenge the values found in your faith tradition?

Video: MacArthur Foundation – Loretta Ross ”Loretta J. Ross, Reproductive Justice and Human Rights Advocate | 2022 MacArthur Fellow” (2:20)

Understanding Reproductive Health, Rights & Justice

The full definition of Reproductive Justice that SACReD uses is from SisterSong, the nation’s oldest and largest Reproductive Justice organization.

SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice as the human right to:

  • Maintain personal bodily autonomy
  • Have children
  • Not have children
  • Parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities

It is important to note that RJ is based on the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted internationally in 1948. This body of law details the rights and freedoms to which every human being is equally and non-negotiably entitled. Governments are supposed to protect these rights.

To participate in the work of Reproductive Justice, we must commit to ongoing transformation of ourselves and the spaces in which we belong. SisterSong informs us that any transformation that leads to Reproductive Justice requires us to regularly:

  1. Analyze power systems
  2. Address intersecting oppressions
  3. Center the most marginalized
  4. Join together across issues and identities

Group Discussion

  • Why was it necessary to develop Reproductive Justice, as distinct from the reproductive rights approach?
  • How do the tenets of Reproductive Justice resonate with your religious values and justice commitments?
  • Your community’s? What questions do you still have about these frameworks?

Engage – Looking Through the Lens of Reproductive Justice

Analyzing a situation to identify the intersecting oppressions and challenges to Reproductive Justice is a key skill to develop. To practice that, we will look at the story of Brittany Watts from Warren, OH, and discuss what concerns and possibilities emerge.

Content Warning: Brittany Watts’s story is tragic and contains information that may be difficult to hear about miscarriage, fetal remains, medical harm, abortion stigma, and criminalization. Please care for yourself in this section. If you need to step away or take a break, please do so.

Video: CBS Mornings “Brittany Watts on being arrested after miscarriage:

‘I never said…I didn’t want my baby.’” (10:21)

Discussion Questions

Participants can discuss their answers in pairs, small groups, or the full group.

  • Can you name some of the intersecting systems of oppression and how they contributed to the challenge of the situation? 
  • How are the Reproductive Justice tenets challenged or affirmed in the case?
  • How does the fear of criminalization for reproductive health decisions undermine one’s bodily autonomy?

Send – Looking Ahead and Closing

Homework

  1. Please watch the following videos. Come prepared to share what you learned with the group. All of these videos are on the Resource Page. Facilitators make sure to email the links to the group ahead of Module 3.
  2. Review the glossary definitions of White Christian Nationalism, Liberation Theology, and Womanist Theology.
  3. Journal and reflect on the following questions:
    • What are the relationships between the videos’ topics and Reproductive Justice?
    • Having watched the videos, how does your body feel? Do you feel any points of compassion, anger, shame, or disappointment? Note in your journal your physical, emotional, and/or spiritual reaction to this content.
    • What questions do you have about what you watched?

Closing

Journaling Reflection Prompt: 

  • How are you feeling after today’s lesson? 
  • What have you learned so far?
  • What are you hoping we cover in this curriculum? 

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 Justice. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective convened this summit. We will use a portion of the SisterSong Visioning New

Futures statement as a responsive reading for our closing. You can read it in unison, responsively, or have each person read a line.

“Visioning New Futures for Reproductive Justice – Declaration 2023,” SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, accessed August 11, 2025.

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.

Alternative Closing:

Offer a prayer or reading from your own tradition or select one from the bank found on the Resource Page.