Is Reproductive Justice related to Environmental Justice? Katsi Cook and the Mother’s Milk Project
By Viola Ruggieri
This podcast episode will explore the links between reproductive rights and environmental justice in the experience of Mohawk people. The pollution of the Mohak lands and the contamination of water and food had devasting effects on Mohawk women's and children’s health. Reproductive justice does not mean only the right to have access to birth control and abortion; it is also the right to have healthy children and to raise those children in a safe environment. When we refer to Indigenous communities, it is necessary to consider the colonialist background. Settler colonialism still affects the lives of Indigenous women, their reproductive rights, their health, and their traditional relationship with the environment. Therefore, an intersectional analysis of reproductive justice is necessary to show the interlacing of reproductive justice with environmental justice, cultural reproduction justice, and Indigenous women's roles in Indigenous communities.
Interview to Katsi Cook, 1988-2011.Katsi Cook during the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment Vision Workshop, 2002“Akwesasne Breastmilk Monotoring Project”, Project Report 1985“Success Story: Akwesasne Mother’s Milk Project”, document form the Global Assembly of Women and the Environment, 1991)“Akwesasne Mother’s Milk Project” information brochure for participants (1986-1991)Katsi Cook Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
