UC Berkeley

Abolition medicine and reproductive justice are synergistic approaches that advance a radical vision of a racially just world. Abolition medicine and reproductive justice push medical and carceral systems towards a focus on the structural factors that impede safe and dignified parenting and childrearing, bodily autonomy, and sexual and reproductive health. Persons experiencing incarceration are stripped of authority over their health decisions, bodily autonomy, and freedom, with major implications for their well-being, sexuality, and reproduction. Black and Brown individuals and communities, who are disproportionately affected by mass incarceration and health disparities, are most in need of abolitionist reproductive justice. This article urges abolitionist clinicians to interrogate the health care sector's relationships with carceral systems and reproductive oppression.