Welcome to the official Notion page for the Women’s Center 2025 Reproductive Justice Conference! This is your one-stop shop for all things about our conference, coming up on Wednesday, March 5, 2025, from 10 AM - 4 PM in Penn Pavilion. Check out all of the info below!

What does reproductive justice mean?

There are many perspectives on and facets of reproductive justice. The one we are adapting comes from SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a Southern based organization whose purpose is to build an effective network of individuals and organizations to improve institutional policies and systems that impact the reproductive lives of marginalized communities.

<aside> 🗣️ According SisterSong, the reproductive justice is defined as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”

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There are three central pillars to reproductive justice activism:

1. Focus on maintaining abortion rights and access
2. Improving contraceptive equity
3. Teaching comprehensive sex education

In addition to these pillars, there are numerous reproductive justice issues that women, femme-identified folks, and people with uteruses face every day. From Black maternal health care, to global inequities in abortion rights, to the intersection of faith and identity with reproductive rights – reproductive justice is a wide umbrella under which many feminist, womanist, and social justice projects fall.

The Duke Reproductive Justice Conference is our way to begin the conversation around reproductive justice on Duke’s campus. We invite students from all schools, degree programs, and walks of life to be a part of the conversation and advance their understanding of reproductive justice in the world today. See below for details on the 2025 conference program, including panel topics and keynote speakers.

<aside> 💡 If you’d like to suggest a theme or speaker for next year’s conference, email [email protected] with the subject line “RJC” or “Reproductive Justice Conference.”

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What is this year’s theme?

The 2025 conference theme, Southern Restrictions: Navigating Abortion Care and Access, touches on many topics at the heart of reproductive justice conversations following the 2022 Supreme Court overturning of Dobbs v. Jackson. Panel topics include Legislator’s Take on NC Restrictions, Lived Experiences of the Ban and more.

PLEASE NOTE: We recognize that this year’s conference is taking place during a unique time in American history and politics, but we encourage everyone to take a good-faith approach to engaging with our conference topic. If you are attending, please respect the following Women’s Center community guidelines:

• Maintain confidentiality – What is said here, stays here, but what is learned here, leaves here.
• Model respectful communication – Don't interrupt each other, don't judge someone’s comment or question, really listen and try to understand where everyone is coming from, challenge each other respectfully.
• Take care of yourself – This may be a difficult topic for some. It is okay to leave the room/take a break if you need to.
• Challenge us! – Ask any and all questions you have about our content, but keep it respectful and professional.
• Be a safe space/brave space – This is a safe place where you should feel safe to learn new things and speak your mind, but it also brave space where you should be brave enough to share what you’re really feeling and challenge any defensiveness you may feel.

How do I sign up?

Sign up with the QR code on the left 👈, or sign up at the link:  https://bit.ly/ReproJC25!!!!

Note: you can earn RCR academic credit for attending this event! Be sure to ask your professors or department to see if you can earn credit.