Professor Loretta Ross, a longtime activist and paragon of feminist academia spoke at Long Beach State’s “The Womxn’s Collective Rising Speaker Series” on Friday afternoon to discuss reproductive justice as a human right.
The Women’s and Gender Equity Center partnered with the Division of Student Affairs, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department and the WGSS student association for the event on Feb. 12.
Ross is an associate professor at Smith College and holds honorary doctorates from Smith College and Arcadia University. She has authored many books and articles about reproductive justice and abortion as a human right through the lens of Black feminism.
Ross spoke to CSULB students about reproductive futurism, also known as the need for political activism to ensure a better future for the generations to come.
“Lots of us are appalled by the fact that we are still in the middle of an unfinished Civil War as represented by insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol flying a confederate flag,” Ross said. “We have to offer critique of white supremacy and radicalization of neo-liberal capitalism and offer strategic vision of what we are trying to build, not just what we are fighting against, but what we are fighting for.”
Ross emphasized the connection between reproductive health, rights and justice. She explained that having a social contract is not only inherently economic, but an “economic concept” itself.
According to Ross, capitalism has been “deeply racialized,” and using the capitalist model is untimely.
“The world is getting younger, browner and more female,” Ross said. “We need a new philosophy to address that.”
Though Ross has led the way for generations of feminists and activists, she said that she wasn’t inspired to become an activist, but that it “was what happened” to her. She opened up about her experiences as a survivor of rape and incest when she was 14.
“I realized I couldn’t determine if and when I had sex and if and when I had a baby,” Ross said. “That pissed me off.”
During the discussion part of the event, a student voiced their opposition to Ross and the reproductive justice movement. They claimed that utilizing a human rights framework in reference to womxn’s reproductive rights was unjust.
Ross addressed the criticism and explained that “you have to be born to claim that right,” and asserted the right for womxn to have autonomy.
“It would also violate the human rights standard to make me a slave simply because I am pregnant,” said Ross. “I’m not less of a being with human rights simply because I have the ability to get pregnant.
Instead of arguing human rights in the abstract, Ross suggests that there needs to be as much legal discussion about human rights as there is moral discussion. She explained that human rights need to become central in political discourse and that the candidates put in office need to prioritize those conversations. Additionally, Ross acknowledged the student’s right to have their opinion, but she has a right to “not have his views imposed upon my body.”
A student voiced their concern that younger generations may become complacent in a “post-Trump era,” with President Jospeh Biden in office and a Democratic Congress. Ross stressed that former president Donald Trump is gone, but the ideologies that put him in office are not. Instead of scolding younger people for being uneducated, she “invites” them to expand their understanding.
“I won’t scold them for being young, that is totally age appropriate,” Ross said. “I’m actually excited for young people.”
Ross has devoted her life to activism and academia and discussed various accolades that set the stage for her career at the event. At 19, Ross was the first woman as well as the first Black person to run a research department at an antifascist organization.
Years later, in 1994, she wrote a report that shed a light on the intersection between anti-abortion violence and white supremacy. Additionally, she co-founded SisterSong, the largest national reproductive justice center for women of color. She is currently working to establish the first undergraduate human rights education institute at Smith College.
“I’m pioneering human rights education and calling it culture,” Ross said. “I don’t spend a damn minute worrying about my legacy.”
Registration for Ross’ online course about white supremacy in the age of Trump is currently open. For more information about future events, visit the Women’s and Gender Equity Center’s website.
Editor’s note: The word “womxn,” an alternative spelling of the word “woman,” has been kept in the article when used to refer to topics spoken at the event.