Reproductive Health and Reproductive Justice for Muslim Women

Reproductive justice is defined as “women and girls achieving economic, social, and political power, and the resources to make healthy decisions about one's bodies, sexuality, and reproductive health for themselves and their families and their communities in all areas of [their] lives” (Zavella 2016, 1). Women of color are the targets of much prejudice in American society. (Ginsburg and Rapp 1995). Since September 11th and especially in the Trump era, Muslims continue to be “otherized” and racialized, further marginalizing Muslim women. Muslim women's reproductive health is impacted by reductive and essentialized perspective of their religious practice, a typical view held by contemporary America. Analyzing these disparities through an intersectional lens allows the researcher to confront popular essentialisms to understand the simultaneous interaction of race, class, and gender in the lives of Muslim women. Using this approach in her study of the reproductive health of African American women in Harlem, Leith Mullings (2005).identifies certain structural constraints, including political and economic factors, that cause stressors during pregnancy and health problems for both mother and child. Her findings and similar studies on Latina women beg the question: how do gender and racial discrimination, class bias, and Islamophobia affect the reproductive health of Muslim women? In this paper, I argue that intersectionality as a method and theoretical approach should be applied to Muslim women's reproductive health and reproductive justice issues, and I sketch out the beginning of an answer to that question.