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Reproductive rights oral history project with Rosalind Petchesky - Podcast 1 of 2

Podcast

Date

2021

Description

Rosalind Petchesky is Distinguished Professor Emerita (retired) of Political Science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is a widely published feminist scholar and recipient of a MacArthur (“genius”) Fellowship. Along with a lifetime of active involvement in social justice and anti war movements, she was one of the original activists in CARASA, the Committee for Abortion Rights & Against Sterilization Abuse beginning in the late 1970s. Her first book, Abortion and Woman’s Choice: The state, sexuality and reproductive freedom (1990, revised) was cited by the United States Supreme Court in its landmark decision, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) and received an award from the American Historical Association. This book will be republished by Verso Books as part of its Feminist Classics series in early 2024. Prof. Petchesky's many subsequent articles and books in the field of reproductive and sexual rights and justice (notably, Global Prescriptions: Gendering health and human rights, Zed 2003 and Bloomsbury, digital version, 2021) have been translated, distributed and read in countries across the globe. Prof. Petchesky was the founder and coordinator of the International Reproductive Rights Research Action Group (IRRRAG), a consortium of teams from seven countries in the global south and north that did field research during the 1990s and presented their findings at the 1994 Cairo conference and in numerous publications, including the book Negotiating Reproductive Rights: Women’s Experiences across countries and cultures (1998). Since 2013 Professor Petchesky has been an active member of Jewish Voice for Peace and part of the New York City chapter’s leadership team, with whom she co-edited/authored A Land With A People: Palestinians and Jews confront Zionism (Monthly Review, 2021). She lives in New York City with her two cats and is the proud grandmother of Anna and Jack Macias Petchesky.