The most recommended reproductive justice books

Who picked these books? Meet our 12 experts.

12 authors created a book list connected to reproductive justice, and here are their favorite reproductive justice books.
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Book cover of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

Julie F. Kay Author Of Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom

From my list on how reproductive rights are human rights.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author and human rights lawyer passionate about making reproductive rights accessible in law and in real life. My written work translates my legal cases into stories to engage readers in the fight to expand rights for all. My legal work leading the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine seeks to make medication abortion legally available in all 50 states, regardless of a person’s ability to pay for it. I have 2 daughters and am always looking to learn from their experience in an ever-changing world and from a diverse range of other women making decisions about whether, when, and whom to have and raise children. 

Julie's book list on how reproductive rights are human rights

Julie F. Kay Why did Julie love this book?

When I read this book as a young lawyer in reproductive rights in the 1990s, it resonated deeply with the daily bias that I witnessed against my clients. Decades later, a highlight of my book tour was being invited to do a talk with Professor Roberts at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Dorothy Roberts’ exploration of “race, reproduction and the meaning of liberty” is powerful.

Her writing clearly lays out how restrictions on abortion, parenting, and access to basic health care are shaped by and also perpetuate American racism. This book inspired me to work for equity and reproductive freedom for all, and hopefully, it will continue to do so for others, too. 

By Dorothy Roberts,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Killing the Black Body as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Killing the Black Body remains a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women. It is as crucial as ever, even two decades after its original publication.
 
"A must-read for all those who claim to care about racial and gender justice in America." —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
 
In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. From…


Book cover of Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

Linda Rosen Author Of The Emerald Necklace

From Linda's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Novelist Swimmer Public Speaker Reader Lover of gardens

Linda's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Linda Rosen Why did Linda love this book?

I love a book with family secrets, and Shapiro’s is staggering.

She discovered this shocker through a random DNA test, which many people are doing now, never expecting to have their lives ripped apart from the results. Shapiro’s definitely was.

Her honesty and exquisite prose grabbed my heart. This memoir will make you contemplate your own identity and your belief of what makes one a parent, and what makes a family. As I enjoy doing in my own writing, this story had me exploring what should and should not be kept secret. So many will identify with Dani Shapiro’s story, in one form or another.

By Dani Shapiro,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Inheritance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Inheritance and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets: a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test, an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love.

“Memoir gold: a profound and exquisitely rendered exploration of identity and the true meaning of family.” —People

In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had casually submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her beloved deceased father…


Book cover of Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century

Rickie Solinger Author Of Reproductive Justice: An Introduction

From my list on why we need reproductive justice.

Why am I passionate about this?

Reproductive justice – reproductive rights – reproductive self-determination – this has been my passion for decades. I’m a historian. The most important thing I’ve learned is how reproductive bodies have always been racialized in the United States, from 1619 to the present day. Circumstances and tactics have changed over time, but lawmakers and others have always valued the reproduction of some people while degrading the reproduction of people defined as less valuable – or valueless – to the nation. Throughout our history, reproductive politics has been at the center of public life.  As we see today. I keep writing because I want more and more of us to understand where we are – and why. 

Rickie's book list on why we need reproductive justice

Rickie Solinger Why did Rickie love this book?

This book is a first. Theobald gives us a really interesting and comprehensive history of pregnancy, birthing, motherhood -- and activism -- on the Crow Reservation in Montana. She explains the interventions of the federal government, for example, via coercive sterilization and child removal, and provides rich accounts of family, tribal, and inter-tribal resistance -- and claims of self-determination -- in the face of these interventions.

By Brianna Theobald,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reproduction on the Reservation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This pathbreaking book documents the transformation of reproductive practices and politics on Indian reservations from the late nineteenth century to the present, integrating a localized history of childbearing, motherhood, and activism on the Crow Reservation in Montana with an analysis of trends affecting Indigenous women more broadly. As Brianna Theobald illustrates, the federal government and local authorities have long sought to control Indigenous families and women's reproduction, using tactics such as coercive sterilization and removal of Indigenous children into the white foster care system. But Theobald examines women's resistance, showing how they have worked within families, tribal networks, and activist…


Book cover of Just Get on the Pill, 4: The Uneven Burden of Reproductive Politics

Rickie Solinger Author Of Reproductive Justice: An Introduction

From my list on why we need reproductive justice.

Why am I passionate about this?

Reproductive justice – reproductive rights – reproductive self-determination – this has been my passion for decades. I’m a historian. The most important thing I’ve learned is how reproductive bodies have always been racialized in the United States, from 1619 to the present day. Circumstances and tactics have changed over time, but lawmakers and others have always valued the reproduction of some people while degrading the reproduction of people defined as less valuable – or valueless – to the nation. Throughout our history, reproductive politics has been at the center of public life.  As we see today. I keep writing because I want more and more of us to understand where we are – and why. 

Rickie's book list on why we need reproductive justice

Rickie Solinger Why did Rickie love this book?

This book has arrived with a bang, telling stories about how women and couples navigate questions of contraception. Littlejohn is a great writer, telling vivid story after vivid story about how decisions about contraception get made -- who has it easy, who doesn't, and why women rarely fall in the first category.

By Krystale E. Littlejohn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Just Get on the Pill, 4 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Understanding the social history and urgent social implications of gendered compulsory birth control, an unbalanced and unjust approach to pregnancy prevention.

The average person concerned about becoming pregnant spends approximately thirty years trying to prevent conception. People largely do so alone using prescription birth control, a situation often taken for granted in the United States as natural and beneficial. In Just Get on the Pill, a keenly researched and incisive examination, Krystale Littlejohn investigates how birth control becomes a fundamentally unbalanced and gendered responsibility. She uncovers how parents, peers, partners, and providers draw on narratives of male and female birth…


Book cover of They Didn't See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties

Melissa Estes Blair Author Of Revolutionizing Expectations: Women's Organizations, Feminism, and American Politics, 1965-1980

From my list on U.S. grassroots feminism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have loved history since I was a girl, visiting my grandparents in Virginia and reading American Girl books. I began to focus on women’s history when I learned in college just how much the women’s movement of the generation before mine had made my life possible. So much changed for American women in the ten years before I was born, and I wanted to know how that happened and how it fit into the broader political changes. That connection, between women making change and the bigger political scene, remains the core of my research. I have a B.A. in history and English from the University of Kentucky, and a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Virginia.

Melissa's book list on U.S. grassroots feminism

Melissa Estes Blair Why did Melissa love this book?

Levenstein’s subtitle says it all: we generally don’t think there was a ‘90s feminism. Her book pairs especially well with the others on this list, because it demonstrates how women of color took the lead in an intersectional feminism that focused on a huge range of issues at the end of the 20th century. It’s also a great read about the role of the early internet in 1990s feminist organizing. If you think social media was the first time computer technology shaped grassroots activism, her chapter on technology alone will blow your mind.

By Lisa Levenstein,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked They Didn't See Us Coming as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On January 21, 2017, massive demonstrations in Washington DC and sister marches held in over 600 American cities drew crowds of over four million people. Popularly called 'The Women's March,' it became the largest single-day protest in American history. The feminism that shaped the consciousness of millions in 2017 had distinct roots in the 1990s.

In They Didn't See Us Coming, historian Lisa Levenstein argues we have missed much of the past quarter century of the women's movement because the conventional wisdom is that the '90s was the moment when the movement splintered into competing factions. But by showcasing voices…


Book cover of Birthing Justice: Black Women, Pregnancy, and Childbirth

Anna Malaika Tubbs Author Of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

From my list on Black motherhood.

Why am I passionate about this?

Anna Malaika Tubbs is the author of the critically acclaimed book The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation. She is also a Cambridge Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and a Bill and Melinda Gates Cambridge Scholar. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a BA in Anthropology, Anna received a Master’s from the University of Cambridge in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies. Outside of the academy, she is an educator and DEI consultant. She lives with her husband, Michael Tubbs, and their son Michael Malakai.

Anna's book list on Black motherhood

Anna Malaika Tubbs Why did Anna love this book?

A crucial read not only for understanding the unique obstacles facing Black birthing parents but also for celebrating the work of organizers who have fought for our reproductive justice. This book explains how key moments in history have led to where we are today and fills gaps of understanding that many have when it comes to Black maternal health.

By Julia Oparah (editor), Alicia Bonaparte (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Birthing Justice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There is a global crisis in maternal health care for black women. In the United States, black women are over three times more likely to perish from pregnancy-related complications than white women; their babies are half as likely to survive the first year. Many black women experience policing, coercion, and disempowerment during pregnancy and childbirth and are disconnected from alternative birthing traditions. This book places black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women's agency in the emerging birth justice movement. Mixing scholarly, activist, and…


Book cover of In the Orchard

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt Author Of Reconceptions: Modern Relationships, Reproductive Science, and the Unfolding Future of Family

From my list on women’s relationship with technology and reproductive justice.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the influence technology and science on culture and our lives, especially women’s lives. The history of women’s rights, in many ways, is a story of science and technology’s influence on women’s evolution towards having more freedom (and now less) to control our bodies. As a science writer, these themes influence many of the stories that I choose to read and tell, including both my books, In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment and Motherhood and Reconceptions: Modern Relationships, Reproductive Science and the Unfolding Future of Family. I also love to read both fictional and non-fiction stories about the nuances of personal identity. 

Rachel's book list on women’s relationship with technology and reproductive justice

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt Why did Rachel love this book?

This novel tells the story of Maise, a devoted wife and mother of four children.

It takes place over the course of a single day in October that begins with Maise nursing her infant and leads to a family outing to an orchard the following afternoon. It beautifully captures the daily emotions that a mother feels, ranging from anxiety to grief to deep love, and explores the feelings around the unpaid labor of motherhood and the financial anxiety that being a parent brings to us all. 

By Eliza Minot,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Orchard as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A novel about womanhood, modern family, and the interior landscape of maternal life, as seen through the life of a young wife and mother on a single day.

At night, Maisie Moore dreams that her life is perfect: the looming mortgages and credit card debt have magically vanished, and she can raise her four children, including newborn Esme, on an undulating current of maternal bliss, by turns oceanic and overwhelming, but awash in awe and wonder. Then she jolts awake and, after checking that her husband and baby are asleep beside her, remembers the real-world money problems to be resolved…


Book cover of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Book cover of Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
Book cover of Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century

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