"Midwives value ‘going where the women are,’ and that is very much what this book has done – South Carolina and North, Zimbabwe, Canada, the South Bronx and Florida; Neonatal intensive care units, operating rooms, radiology suites and birth centers, HIV Clinics and bedrooms – this book takes us to all of them. And the women – they are mothers and midwives and doctors and nurses; they tell their story, a quilt square tells their death; they stand as women or as the still-rare pregnant transman. And the pain and the strength of what it means to be Black and pregnant is written on every page. A long-awaited, much needed book!"
Barbara Katz Rothman, Professor of Sociology, City University of New York.
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"The contributors to this important volume write not only of the relationships between a parent and child and others in their lives but also about the racism and other structural forces that threaten these ties. Addressing these threats requires that we recognize the connections between birth justice and other forms of social justice, including racial and economic justice and the movement to end the war on drugs. Fittingly, Birthing Justice also speaks to resilience and the power of collective action forged out of struggle; it reminds us that black women and trans/gender nonconforming individuals continue to resist the devaluation of their personhood and to mobilize for social change. This book and the advocacy and scholarship that inform and surround it promise to energize and advance our movements in important ways."
Jeanne Flavin, Professor of Sociology, Fordham University and President, National Advocates for Pregnant Women board of directors. Author, our bodies, our crimes: the policing of women's reproduction in america.
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"At last, a book that places the experiences of Black women at the center of the debates about childbirth. Mixing activist, scholarly and personal perspectives, this book reclaims the history of black women as active agents in their birthing experiences, and deftly critiques the unwanted and questionable interventions that women throughout the diaspora have been subjected to, while inspiring readers to push for social change."
Kimala Price, Associate Professor, Women’s Studies, Co-Director, The Bread and Roses Center for Feminist Research and Activism, San Diego State University
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"Birthing Justice: Black Women, Pregnancy and Childbirth is a truly original and innovative book -- and an absolute necessity in the current field of research on reproduction. With an interdisciplinary range of authors that also includes activists both within and outside the academy, the book demonstrates the important relationship between feminist scholarship and feminist activism."
Christa Craven, Chair, Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, Associate Professor of Anthropology, College of Wooster, author, Pushing for Midwives: Homebirth Mothers and the Reproductive Rights Movement.
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