Based on the material in our class readings and discussion, along with other material from the course website and your own interests, please comment on some issue in the area of policy-making and reproductive health in the US. How does the issue of gender play into the issue? Who makes most of the decisions about reproductive health policy? How are these issues complicated by the recent Zika outbreak, both here and the US and in other countries? In your answers please incorporate some discussion of the concept of reproductive justice with the idea in mind that this should include access to abortion, choice to have children, choice to parent, per Kimala Price.

This module shift gears a bit, though there are plenty of issues in the area of reproductive health that connect with everything else we have learned. You may think of reproductive health as a women's concern, but actually it is a concern for all people. Here is one area where gender differences are clearly defined by sex-specific body parts...or are they? Instead of assuming that these are women's issues, consider the different ways that these issues affect all kinds of human bodies of various sex and gender (including intersex and transexual) AND how things change over the course of a body's lifetime. Consider how policy making impacts peoples lives in all kinds of unanticipated ways when it touches on issues related to reproductive health, in particular in the context of the current Zika outbreak. Review the CDC and WHO website information on Zika and pregnancy. Also, check the New York Times for most recent articles on the Zika outbreak. Read the article by Kimala Price, then watch After Tiller -- be advised that this film may be quite disturbing to watch. Feel free to get in touch with me if you need to.

Film: After Tiller and website

Kimala Price, ?What is Reproductive Justice?: How Women of Color Activists are Redefining the Pro-Choice Paradigm,? Meridians (2010).

Estelle B. Freedman, ?Reproduction: The Politics of Choice,? No Turning Back (2002).

CDC Website -- National Survey of Family Growth

CDC Website -- Reproductive Birth Outcomes and the Environment

CDC Report "Fertility, Contraception and Fatherhood"

CDC website on Zika

WHO website on Zika

NY Times -- recent articles on Zika

Various websites

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