| The Womb Issue
Words | Cristina Deptula
When Loretta J. Ross received a letter from a convicted rapist in prison, asking for help to learn how to change his behavior, her first reaction was one of anger. Ross was a sexual assault survivor who, at that time, led one of the nation’s first rape crisis centers. But the lifelong activist, writer, and intellectual decided to react differently. She entered into a dialogue with the man, and that conversation inspired her 2025 book, Calling In: How to Start Making Change With Those You’d Rather Cancel.
“My first thought reflects my instincts, and my second thought reflects my values.”
While her first instinct was justified anger, she instead decided to build a connection, hoping to have a positive influence.
Loretta J. Ross is known for her decades of advocacy for people’s bodily autonomy and safety. She’s worked toward these goals by campaigning for reproductive justice and against racism and sexual violence. A necessary part of this work has always been building connections and coalitions among diverse groups that, through dialogue, recognize they share similar goals. So, engaging in this sort of conversation and helping to educate people rather than writing them off is integral to her efforts.
“How we do the work is as important as the work we do, because who we bring along is inseparable from how far we’ll go.”
Calling In: How to Start Making Change With Those You’d Rather Cancel explains how a call-in differs from a call-out and from the popular idea of “canceling” someone who has done or said something offensive. Rather than seeking to punish the person or ensure they are never heard from again, a call-in focuses on inviting them into conversations where they are held accountable and urged to change their behavior in a respectful way.
“And, the first person you have to call in is yourself,” she reminds us. We have the most power to influence ourselves, and we all can hold unhealthy stereotypes and attitudes. “Next, think about whom you have the power to influence. And, when you’re trying to help someone change and re-think their beliefs, avoid being arrogant and saying these four words: ‘I told you so.’”
She applies this framework to the decision about whether to vote for political candidates who may be problematic in certain ways, yet better than the alternatives. “You can vote for someone one day, then protest them the next,” Ross says. “And they’re more likely to listen to their supporters than their opponents.”
People reaching across differences.
Image credit: Cottonbro Studios.
In a similar vein, Ross has “called in” white hate group members, coaching and deprogramming those who wanted to leave racist organizations. As part of this work, she helped coordinate a network that she called an “underground railroad” of nonprofits and churches that invested resources into helping people escape and start new lives elsewhere.
She remembers one man who left a hate group behind after his son was born with a cleft palate. “He got mad because others in the group made cruel comments, judging his son by his appearance, then he started rethinking his own judgments of others.”
Ross teaches courses at Smith College on understanding and dismantling white supremacy, having tracked and studied groups such as the Ku Klux Klan since the 1990s.
“White supremacy is different from whiteness, since it’s an ideology, not a racial identity,” she says. “You can be white and oppose white supremacy, and, sadly, you can be a person of color and uphold white supremacist ideology.”
“White supremacy isn’t just about race. It’s a whole value system based on biological determinism, that your life and social role have to be a certain way just because of the groups into which you were born.”
Ross connects racism against people of color, attacks on political democracy, and attacks on the rights of women and LGBTQ people as part of white supremacist ideology.
Rejecting this idea of biological determinism and advocating for equal rights, autonomy, and safety for all people links Ross’s anti-racist work with her reproductive justice advocacy.
Anti-racist protest.
Image credit: Pavel Danilyuk.
Developed by Ross and other Black women in the 1990s, reproductive justice expands the concept of reproductive rights beyond preserving legal protections for reproductive healthcare services to encompass broader social and environmental issues.
“Our reproductive choices intersect with many other social justice issues. Whether you’ve got stable housing, healthcare, education, healthy food, a neighborhood affected by gun violence, all of that affects whether you decide to have children.”
“People on both the pro-choice and the pro-life side can misinterpret how pregnant people make decisions,” says Ross.
She served for many years as the national coordinator for the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, an organization founded and led by women from diverse backgrounds. They campaign for legislation that supports the lives and autonomy of pregnant people, parents, and children, and provide practical assistance to low-income parents. Over the years, SisterSong has addressed an intersectional set of issues, including LGBTQ rights and domestic violence.
Hands joined for inclusive progress.
Image credit: Lisett Kruusimae.
Ross’s personal life inspired her to formulate the concept of reproductive justice, as she charted her own destiny despite obstacles and limited resources. After having a child as a teen mother and dropping out of college for financial reasons, she returned to school as an older adult.
“When my son graduated, I got inspired and realized I could finish school myself,” she recollects. She went back to college to study chemistry and physics, graduating at fifty-five and becoming a scholar.
Now, she’s a professor at Smith College in Northampton, MA, in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender. She’s been published or cited in a variety of popular and academic media outlets, including Elle, Vox, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Ms., and the Huffington Post.
Currently, she’s writing about the future of reproductive justice as it intersects with emerging technology. “Our societies are developing new technologies in reproductive medicine, and I’d like to figure out how we can harness them to make society more equitable.”
Ross carries hope that, through bridge-building, call-ins, and open communication, we can build a society that protects the rights and lives of all its members.
“We’ve got the capacity for compassion across social barriers. So we can figure out how to apply that to helping survivors of human-created disasters.”
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©2018 -2025 – TrooRa is a registered trademark of Rare Luxury Living LLC TrooRa Magazine, A Fortunest Group and is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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