You're listening to the LRB podcast. I'm me and Christ, and welcome to the first episode in a special short series exploring the intersection of climate chaos and

reproductive justice. Over the next four episodes going out every other week, my guests and I will

be asking what it means to pursue reproductive justice in a rapidly warming world. What happens

when environmental devastation gets linked to the size of human populations. How have population,

procreation, and women's bodies been thought of in the past? Where are we today and where might

we be headed for better or worse in the future? My guests will include evolutionary biologist

and feminist scholar Banu Subramanium, historian Alison

Bashford, and scholar of climate feminism and activism, Jade Sasser. But I'm starting today

with the activist and feminist scholar Loretta Ross, one of the co-creators of the reproductive

justice framework. She is a scholar and activist who has spent five decades deepening our understanding

of the intersections of race, reproduction, and the politics of white nationalism.

A rape and incest survivor, as well as a teen mother, she was sterilized without her consent

as a young woman. She began her work as an activist in the 1970s, coining the term women of color with a group of black and minority activists in 1977, and working in leadership positions at U.S. organizations such as the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, the National Organization for Women, the National Black Women's Health Project, and the Center for Democratic Renewal,

as well as founding the National Center for Human Rights Education.

She was a co-founder and served as the national coordinator of the Sister Song

Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and in 2004, she was national co-director

of the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C.,

at that time, the largest protest march in U.S. history, with 1.15 million participants.

She retired from her career as an organizer in 2012 to focus on teaching,

and is now associate professor of the study of women and gender at Smith College.

Her most recent books include Reproductive Justice and Introduction,

co-written with Ricky Solinger, and Radical Reproductive Justice,

...