Iconic feminist introduced world to reproductive justice

Loretta Ross was one of the most important figures within the women's movement in the last half-century because of her work to include more women of color

(Loretta Ross has been a seminal feminist within reproductive justice for the last 40 years)

Loretta Ross has been one of the foremost figures of reproductive justice since she helped begin the concept back in the early 1990s. Along with figures like Dazon Dixon Diallo and Byllye Avery, she drove the feminist movement to be more inclusive of women of color. 

It started when she took a job at the National Organization for Women in 1985. She was tasked with recruiting more Black women to the organization. 

Ross has been involved heavily in the reproductive rights movement since the 1970s. After she was sterilized at the age of 1923 as a result of a defective intrauterine device, she became interested in securing women’s bodily autonomy. She also had an abortion when she was younger, but she had challenges getting her mother to consent to Loretta getting one. 

“I had no intention of becoming a feminist or social justice activist,” Ross said. “But these are large, loud door knocks on my consciousness.” 

Reproductive justice philosophy is a more expansive view of feminism that accounts for the experiences of women of color and calls for the larger feminist movement to support policies that would help mothers care for children as much as it would preserve contraceptive and abortion access. Much of it focuses on the challenges of poor women.

Ross saw that white women didn’t realize how their race affected their own experiences as compared to those belonging to other ethnicities. She coined the phrase, “Appropriate whiteness,” to refer to the type of white-lived experience they would want to live in lieu of white supremacy. 

“There’s a difference between white supremacy–the ideology–and whiteness as an identity,” Ross said. “If you see it as an identity, you get to repurpose what that identity means for you without following the script and ideology of white supremacy. So it almost felt like a strategic breakthrough.” 

Ross also studied and monitored hate groups as part of her work with the Center for Democratic Renewal. It was at that point that she noticed the overlap between the anti-abortion and white supremacist movements. 

“The walls between those movements are very porous, and there was a lot of personnel crossover between that white supremacist movement and the anti-abortion movement,” Ross said. “Particularly this violent vigilante subculture with the wanted posters on doctors and the attacks on clinic staff and the bombings and the arsons and the stalking and things like that.”

She discovered people who belonged to both movements by looking at different databases. White supremacists like John Burt, a one-time Klansman, advised Michael Griffin and Paul Hill, both of whom killed providers outside of their facilities. That proved Ross’ point. 

Reproductive justice philosophy emerged between 1989 and 1994. A lot of it had to do with the international struggles women had during that time. All of that influenced Ross as she helped lead women to a more empowering narrative for marginalized communities. 

There are some important lessons to still take from its development. White women then were reluctant to take attention off abortion rights to focus on other issues pertaining to motherhood or feminism. As with now, there may be a tendency to focus on preserving the right rather than on focusing on a more complete picture that addresses all the challenges faced by women of different socioeconomic strata. 

“A lot of the early fights were about demonstrating to people that abortion rights were within the reach were within the reproductive justice framework,” Ross said. “It didn't abandon the fight for abortion so much as to contextualize the fight for abortion.” 

Ross has led numerous organizations like SisterSong and is the co-author with Rickie Solinger of Reproductive Justice: An Introduction.