ABOUT
The Journal
Plan B: a journal of reproductive justice is a multidisciplinary journal that publishes literary and scholarly works.
Inspired by SisterSong, the Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective located in Atlanta, Georgia, we created this journal to provide a space for people to come together to share stories and knowledge about reproductive issues in an era of increasing attacks and repealed protections on reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy. Within the pages of this journal, we hope to provide a place for individuals to inspire hope, to grieve losses, to express frustrations, and perhaps most importantly, to spark collective resistance.
We understand reproductive justice 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” (SisterSong), but we also recognize the tensions the phrase can carry. Indeed, a focus on “reproduction” may unintentionally distance individuals who do not view their bodies as reproductive, who choose to remain child-free, or who are navigating reproductive health issues that are not centered around reproductive decision-making. Approaching this work from the perspective that all people have reproductive capacity and the right to reproductive healthcare across all life stages, the choice of whether or not to reproduce, and access to informed decision-making about reproductive health issues, is fundamental to the work we strive to highlight. We feature writing that works to complicate (and challenge) reproductive and biomedical logics rather than simply accept them. In doing so, we invite readers to reflect on the ways in which power disciplines our bodies and influences critical life decisions related to reproduction and reproductive healthcare as well as the ways individuals resist these powers to lead lives of self determination. While we honor SisterSong's definition of reproductive justice, we ask readers to think about the foundation they have laid more expansively—to understand that the right to bodily autonomy also includes the right to gender-affirming care, to comprehensive healthcare across all stages of reproductive life, to freedom from coercive or non-consensual medical interventions, and to make decisions about one's body without fear of violence, surveillance, or criminalization.
Recognizing the need to amplify and circulate stories and scholarship that consider the complexities of reproductive justice—especially in our current political state—we invite you, dear readers, to join us in the important conversations prompted by these works.
Vision
We create a home for stories and perspectives centered around Reproductive Justice.
Mission
We are a coalition of people who believe in the ability of creativity and scholarship to move us toward a more just and fair world. Our aim is to create a nurturing environment that empowers writers and scholars to share their embodied knowledges related to Reproductive Justice.
Values
Care, Reproductive Justice, Inclusion, Embodied Knowledge, Creativity
The Title
Plan B is both shorthand for a type of emergency contraception colloquially known as the “morning after pill,” and the name of the PhD program in Public Rhetorics and Community Engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where three of the founding members of the editorial board met.