juxtablog

Health and Justice

What does it mean to be healthy? Why is it, as Amiel asserted, “the first liberty?”

A measureof health is often made by assessing physical needs. This is central and inexorable. But, as reproductive justice advocates know, it is more, as well.

A woman’s ability to control her body and its reproductive capacity is central to securing overall health. Access to abortion and contraception are the tip of a very large iceberg of needs.

Acknowledging a history of eugenics and population control, the reproductive justice approach aims to ensure that women have all the medical and social resources they need to have children, or not, as well as the right to control if, when and how they become mothers. This awareness, while including access to abortion and contraception, extends to other needs, as well:

1. Maternity care, including pre- and post-natal care and infertility treatment;
2. A range of birthing options including midwives, doulas and alternative care providers;
3. Mental health services;
4. Preventative care, including but not limited to, Pap smears, vaccinations (such as HPV), childbirth education and mammograms;
5. Services that are ethnically and culturally competent;
6. Care that is sensitive to people of all different genders and sexual orientations and addresses their unique concerns;
7. Health care services that are economically and physically accessible to women and their families.

The reproductive justice movement thinks more broadly about the political, cultural, economic, racial, institutional and environmental factors that pertain to bodily health. A reproductive justice-based approach considers not only what illness a woman might have, but also the social factors (environmental toxins, access to preventative care, community health education, and so on) that make her more or less prone to getting sick and more or less able to afford treatment.

This comprehensive approach changes the meaning of “health” rather dramatically. “Health” no longer simply refers to whether or not a person is sick or whether or not a woman can get reproductive health care. Instead, it diagnoses the factors that contribute to, or detract from, overall wellbeing, not merely for a single woman, but also for her family and the community in which she lives. This is what Amiel means, I believe, when he says that in health there is freedom.

this is an excerpt, please read the rest of the article at:

On The Issues Magazine: Fall 2009: The First of All Liberties: Making Health Care Meet All Women’s Needs by Eesha Pandit