FemResThe Living Review
13Current issueReproductive autonomy and justice

Who really has a reproductive choice?

Not having children, having them, and raising them with support: why are these freedoms so often separated? Starting with campaigns for abortion rights and against sterilization abuse, this issue connects journeys for care on film, Brazilian childbirth research, disabled people’s authority over decisions, and migrant mothers’ lives. Thirty resources ask what healthcare, time and public support can make a legal choice a real possibility.

Cover story
A Woman's Life Is a Human Life

In this issue

30 items

Books8

01

Books · Jan 2023

A Woman's Life Is a Human Life

Felicia Kornbluh

Kornbluh links abortion rights and resistance to sterilization abuse, showing why reproductive autonomy includes the right to bear children.

02

Books · Jan 2001

Happening

L'ÉvénementAnnie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux revisits her 1963 illegal abortion through memory and writing, examining the body, law, class, and the silence surrounding the experience.

03

Books · Mar 2003

The Dialectic of Sex

Shulamith Firestone

A radical feminist masterwork proposing that technological revolution in reproductive control is key to women's liberation, offering a feminist transformation of Marxism.

04

Books · May 2013

Feminist, Queer, Crip

Alison Kafer

Alison Kafer's Feminist, Queer, Crip asks who gets included in feminist and queer futures, using disability, reproductive politics, environmental justice, and access to challenge ableist ideas of a 'better life.'

05

Books · Feb 2017

Brilliant Imperfection

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with CureEli Clare

Through disability, trans experience, eugenic history, and environmental restoration, Eli Clare dismantles the ideology of cure while preserving the necessary tension between medical need and refusal of normalization.

06

Books · Mar 2025

Precarious Motherhood

Rachel Benchekroun

Benchekroun traces migrant mothers’ work, housing and support in London, showing how relationships enable belonging while creating new dependencies.

07

Books · Feb 2018

Feminism and the Politics of Childhood

Rachel Rosen and Katherine Twamley

Rosen and Twamley’s collection asks how women’s and children’s justice can be pursued together, without erasing either carers’ labor or children’s agency.

08

Books · Jun 2021

Trans Medicine

stef m. shuster

Sociologist stef m. shuster traces trans medicine’s history and clinical practice, asking how authority forms under uncertainty and shapes access to gender-affirming care.

Films3

Videos2

Podcasts2

Articles9

01

Articles · May 2011

Second Manifesto on Disabled Women’s Rights

European Disability Forum

EDF’s 2011 manifesto connects legal capacity, community life, sexual rights and leadership, exposing tensions between support and substitute decisions.

02

Articles · Oct 2013

Indigenous Women in Latin America: Demographic and Social Dynamics in a Human-Rights Framework

ECLAC / CELADE / Gender Equality Observatory

A regional evidence base on Indigenous women’s physical, economic, and political autonomy that also exposes how statistical invisibility limits rights, policy, and accountability.

03

Articles · Oct 2022

Indigenous Women and Girls: CEDAW No. 39

UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

CEDAW No. 39 connects Indigenous women’s individual and collective rights through land, justice and participation.

04

Articles · Mar 2011

Blackening Feminism

Sueli Carneiro

Carneiro connects labor, beauty and reproductive autonomy to ask whose experience defines women’s oppression and how antiracism changes feminist politics.

05

Articles · Jan 1987

Brazilian Women's Letter to the Constituent Assembly

Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Mulher (CNDM)

The collective letter connects women's political voice to family authority, labor, care and bodily autonomy, demanding democracy in the institutions of everyday life.

06

Articles · Nov 2022

Buenos Aires Commitment: A Care Society

Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean / ECLAC

The 2022 Buenos Aires Commitment treats care as a right, linking labor, public services, disabled people’s autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

07

Articles · Oct 2025

Endometriosis: Pain and the Right to Be Heard

World Health Organization (WHO)

WHO’s overview opens a reading path through endometriosis, pain recognition, unequal access and health beyond fertility.

08

Articles · Jan 2021

Rights at Risk: Time for Action

Naureen Shameem et al. / Observatory on the Universality of Rights

The 2021 OURs report examines anti-rights narratives, institutional strategies and the co-optation of rights language, alongside feminist resistance.

09

Articles · Mar 1942

Thoughts on March 8

Ding Ling

Ding Ling connects marriage gossip, childcare and judgments of women’s progress in Yan’an, asking who bears responsibility when demands for self-reliance meet exhaustion.

Papers6

01

Papers · Jun 2010

Abortion in Brazil: A Household Survey Using the Ballot Box Technique

Aborto no Brasil: uma pesquisa domiciliar com técnica de urnaDebora Diniz, Marcelo Medeiros

Brazil’s 2010 survey uses confidential questionnaires to study abortion experience, distinguishing lifetime reports from annual incidence and procedure counts.

02

Papers · Jul 2017

The color of pain: racial iniquities in prenatal care and childbirth in Brazil

A cor da dor: iniquidades raciais na atenção pré-natal e ao parto no BrasilMaria do Carmo Leal, Silvana G. N. da Gama, Ana P. E. Pereira, Vanessa E. Pacheco, Cleber N. do Carmo, Ricardo V. Santos

Brazilian birth data distinguish service coverage from equitable care, revealing racial disparities in prenatal provision, companionship and pain relief.

03

Papers · Mar 2002

Unwanted Pregnancy: Health and Social Impacts in Latin America and the Caribbean

El embarazo no deseado: impacto sobre la salud y la sociedad en América Latina y el CaribeAna Langer

Ana Langer’s 2002 regional review connects unwanted pregnancy with reproductive preferences, unequal contraceptive access and nonconsensual sex.

04

Papers · Jan 2009

From Rights to Justice: Women of Color Changing the Face of US Reproductive Rights Organizing

Zakiya Luna

Zakiya Luna analyzes how women of color organizations pushed US reproductive rights organizing from individual choice and legal rights toward an intersectional reproductive justice framework.

05

Papers · Nov 2013

Reproductive Justice

Zakiya Luna and Kristin Luker

Luna and Luker review reproductive justice through law and society scholarship, showing how the framework reshapes research on reproductive rights, health, intersectionality, movements, and state power.

06

Papers · Feb 2021

Feminist Mobilization and the Abortion Debate in Latin America: Lessons from Argentina

Mariela Daby and Mason W. Moseley

A mixed-method study showing that Argentina’s abortion debate became politically possible through feminist organization and framing, rather than waiting for favorable opinion, secularization, or party leadership.