Reproductive Rights and Justice: A Content Analysis of the Social Work Literature

Background and Purpose:

Reproductive Rights and Justice frameworks, which take an intersectional and social justice approach to reproductive health, are compatible both with Social Work’s philosophical and theoretical foundations, and with its practical goals of advocating and promoting social justice. Despite its importance, reproductive rights and justice are not frequently addressed in social work publications. Previous reviews have analyzed the reproductive health and family planning literature, but this is the first to specifically analyze the scope of reproductive rights and reproductive justice in the social work literature.

Method:

Journal impact factors were utilized to identify the top 50 social work journals. Though using this measure is limited, it identifies the most influential social work scholarship on these topics. Use of the search terms “reproductive rights” and “reproductive justice” identified 61 articles published between 1983-2016 within these journals. Exclusion criteria removed articles that did not include the search terms in the body of the article and that were not research articles (i.e. editorials, book reviews), reducing the reviewed articles to 21. A content analysis was conducted to analyze the articles for article purpose and topic, location, study population, year, social work journal, key findings, and implications for the social work profession.

Result:

Social work education and practice (n=6), abortion (n=5), and political advocacy and reproductive rights (n=6) were the most common focus of articles. Only two articles explicitly focused on reproductive justice. These articles framed their purposes as offering overview/reviews of reproductive health issues (n=8), as new knowledge creation (n=6), guidance for practice (n=6) and advocacy (n=6). Most articles (n=15) were literature reviews, policy notes, or theoretical applications. Only six articles utilized quantitative (n=4) or qualitative (n=2) research methods to collect data. Four of these six articles used social work practitioners or students as their study sample. Most articles were published in the last ten years (n=15). A variety of social work journals were represented, with Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work (n=7) publishing the most articles. Though five articles were international in scope, most (n=15) focused on the United States. Almost all (n=18) called for an increase in research and practice on reproductive rights topics. Encouragingly, most articles (n=19) included an analysis of the role of the social work profession and reproductive rights.

Conclusion and Implications:

There is not only a relative paucity of articles on reproductive rights and justice, but the range of topics covered in these articles, and their methodological approaches, are limited. Though the recent increase in reproductive rights literature is heartening, it is surprising that only two articles focused on reproductive justice since it is congruent with the profession’s social justice values. Social workers provide a substantial amount of health-related services, in addition to being integral to the development of health policy, making an integration of reproductive rights and justice frameworks into social work research and practice especially needed. These findings suggest that social workers are receptive to a reproductive justice approach but highlight the need for applications of this framework to practice.