Compromising Justice: Reproductive Rights Advocacy in the Time of Trump

Abstract

Abstract:The first three years of the Trump Administration had dire effects on the status of reproductive rights in the United States. Within this context, reproductive rights, health, and justice advocates had to respond creatively and forcefully, sometimes utilizing tactics that involved strategic compromises to accomplish their goals. This essay examines the politics of compromise occurring within contemporary fights for equitable access to comprehensive sexual health education and contraception. Analyzing news media and public policy in relation to these advocacy efforts, this essay illustrates that arguments made for sex education in the name of preventing teen pregnancy and for long-acting, reversible contraceptives in the name of preventing abortion undermine the goal of reproductive self-determination. These arguments reinforce notions that have long plagued advocacy for sex education and birth control in the United States—that certain people are illegitimate reproducers and that specific reproductive options are intolerable. As such, these strategic compromises often support the directing of resources toward programs that constrain, rather than enable, reproductive freedom for all people.