“An act of compassion”: Emotion and the struggle for reproductive justice

Abstract

In dialogue with the rich scholarship on affect and the role of emotions in feminist knowledge production, this article explores how compassion is mobilized by activists in the struggle for reproductive justice. The author centers emotional knowledge by drawing on conversations with a reproductive justice advocate in central Florida, the musical anthem of Viva Ruíz and the Thank God for Abortion Collective, and her own personal experience with pregnancy loss. This includes a discussion of the ways that coloniality persists in the racialized and gendered landscape of reproductive politics, with particular attention to the experiences of Puerto Ricans. Ultimately, the article argues that an attunement to “a radical compassion”—that is, a deep concern and understanding of the intersectional oppressions that place value on certain bodies over others—engenders the possibilities of reproductive justice and produces alternative ways of knowing and feeling.