Toward Interspecies Reproductive Justice

Authors

• Asha A. Ramakumar

Author Details

Asha A. Ramakumar, J.D. 2023, Harvard Law School.

First Page

99

Abstract

Reproductive justice discourse has largely overlooked non-human animals, despite the parallel forms of biopolitical control exercised over human women and female animals’ reproductive labor. By examining the shared logics underlying the subordina-tion of both human women and dairy cows, this Article argues that any genuine conception of reproductive justice must inter-rogate reproductive exploitation beyond the human experience. Drawing from Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower and Carol J. Adams’ framework of the “absent referent,” this Article elucidates how powerful institutions control those with the capacity for preg-nancy by perpetuating narratives of biological essentialism and obligation.

Part II examines several examples of how reproductive con-trol over women—from the commodification of Black women’s bodies during slavery, to contemporary breastfeeding discourses and the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—has maintained women’s subordinate sta-tus within these systems of power. Part III demonstrates the par-allel logics within the dairy industry—where female cows endure extreme reproductive exploitation masked by bucolic mythology, sexualized discourse, and industry claims of expertise—allowing the systematic exploitation of nonhuman bodies to remain unchecked.

Part IV explains how these parallel experiences of biopolitical control can form the foundation for a new conception of reproductive justice: This Article proposes embodiment theory as a framework for interspecies solidarity. By centering subjective, felt experience as epistemically legitimate, embodiment offers an alternative framing for rights-based approaches that attempt to fit nonhuman animals into deliberately exclusionary legal frame-works. This Article argues that without contemplating nonhuman animals within human liberation frameworks, social justice movements risk replicating and maintaining the very structures of oppression they seek to dismantle.

Recommended Citation

Asha A. Ramakumar, Toward Interspecies Reproductive Justice, 32 Animal L. Rev. 99 (2026).
Available at: https://lawcommons.lclark.edu/alr/vol32/iss1/5