Bridging the Expertise of Advocates and Academics to Identify Reproductive Justice Learning Outcomes.

Phenomenon: Reproductive justice (RJ) is defined by women of color advocates as the right to have children, not have children and parent children while maintaining reproductive autonomy. In the United States, physicians have been complicit in multiple historical reproductive injustices, involving coercive sterilization of thousands of people of color, low income, and disabilities. Currently, reproductive injustices continue to occur; however, physicians have no formal RJ medical education to address injustices. The objective of this study was to engage leading advocates within the movement using a Delphi method to identify critical components for such a curriculum. Approach: In 2016, we invited 65 RJ advocates and leaders to participate in an expert panel to design RJ medical education. A 3-round Delphi survey was distributed electronically to identify content for inclusion in an RJ curriculum. In the next 2 survey rounds, experts offered feedback and revisions and rated agreement with including content recommendations in the final curriculum. We calculated descriptive statistics to analyze quantitative data. A team with educational expertise wrote learning outcomes based on expert content recommendations. Findings: Of the 65 RJ advocates and leaders invited, 41 participated on the expert panel of the Delphi survey. In the first survey, the expert panel recommended 58 RJ content areas through open-ended response. Over the next 2 rounds, there was consensus among the panel to include 52 of 58 of these areas in the curriculum. Recommended content fell into 11 broad domains: access, disparities, and structural competency; advocacy; approaches to reproductive healthcare; contemporary law and policy; cultural safety; historical injustices; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and intersex health; oppression, power, and bias training; patient care; reproductive health; and RJ definitions. The 97 learning outcomes created from this process represented both unique and existing educational elements. Insights: A collaborative methodology infused with RJ values can bridge experts in advocacy and academics. New learning outcomes identified through this process can enhance medical education; however, it is just as important to consider education in RJ approaches to care as it is knowledge about that care. We must explore the pedagogic process of RJ medical education while considering that expertise in this area may exist outside of the medical community and thus there is a need to partner with RJ advocates. Finally, we expect to use innovative teaching methods to transform medical education and achieve an RJ focus.

Black celebrities, reproductive justice and queering family: an exploration.

Decades ago, political theorist Cathy Cohen reflected on the meaning and possibilities of coalition among groups as diverse as gay men and single mothers. This article focuses on Black women's fertility struggles as they navigate controlling images and the Black fertility mandate. I compare accounts of how celebrities and non-celebrities have discussed making families through reproductive technology, and whether we can read these narratives as attempting to redefine and even 'queer' family. Ultimately, while the horizons of reproductive technology are ever expanding, those of us who care about justice would do well to ask if and how, in the everyday operations of our life, the technology does anything to change how the particular society in which we are embedded views people on the reproductive margins, such as single mothers and others who 'queer' typical narratives of reproduction.

Marching toward reproductive justice: coalitional (re) framing of the March for Women's Lives.

This article examines how coalition frames develop and what happens to that frame after the formal coalition ends. To that end, I analyze the frame shift around the 2004 March for Women's Lives (March). The March initially focused on established ideas of reproductive rights around which the four national mainstream co-sponsors previously organized. However, after a newer reproductive justice organization joined the coalition, material and organizing reflected a shift in framing to reproductive justice. How did this change happen? What are the impacts of this event for the women's movement? Through document analysis and interviews, I trace the negotiations that facilitated this framing shift. I argue that this new coalition frame translated into positive lasting changes in organizing for women's reproductive health even as the coalition dissolved and some of the tensions within the larger women's movement remain.