July 2022 - “Race and Reproductive Justice"
The Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade will have a horrific impact on women. Until the early twentieth century when male-dominated medical organizations like the American Medical Association asserted more and more power, women maintained much control over reproduction. In colonial times midwives not only supported healthy pregnancies and births. They commonly induced miscarriages through manipulation and herbal remedies.
Despite centuries of brutal control of Black bodies, enslaved women exercised similar control. Some brought knowledge from Africa about medicinal herbs to assist or disrupt reproduction. Enslaved women sometimes chewed cotton roots to prevent pregnancy or induce miscarriages. They learned about, and facilitated use of, other tinctures as abortifacients, such as calomel and turpentine to end pregnancies to deny slaveholders more humans to hold in bondage. These were dramatic and powerful forms of resistance to slavery.
Despite greater autonomy for Black women after the Civil War, they were systematically denied access to health care necessary for optimal reproductive agency. Nevertheless, at the end of the 19th century, according to Loretta J. Ross, a nationally recognized expert on Black reproductive justice, Black fertility and infant mortality declined. This was in part due to the fact that many Black women embraced broader social roles as nurturers of race and nation. This was more possible after they shed exclusive identification as breeders and matriarchs burdened by the work of raising large families.
Today Black women are still having to wrestle with racism in the healthcare system. Not only are their health outcomes negatively affected by disparities in housing, employment, and socioeconomic status, studies indicate that our health care system minimizes the dangers to, and suffering of, Black people. [For more see here and here.]
Atrocious misinformation campaigns that falsely accuse reproductive justice advocates of promoting a racist eugenicist theory have long complicated efforts to empower Black women. Loretta Ross explains how anti-abortion campaigns targeting Black people in her home state of Georgia accuse choice advocates of promoting “black genocide.” She wrote, “We are now accused of ‘lynching’ our children in our wombs and practicing white supremacy on ourselves …. This is what lies on steroids look like.”
According to Maame-Mensime Horne, author of Black Abortion: Breaking the Silence, “[a]ccess to abortion actually saved lives in black communities, where illegal abortion was a leading cause of death before Roe v. Wade.” She adds that “Black anti-abortionists are not concerned about women having autonomy over their bodies or mobilizing against reproductive oppressions. Instead, they continue paternalistic beliefs that place a woman's role as ‘mother’ higher than anything else.”
A decade ago, Georgia billboards declaring that “Black children are an endangered species” directed people to a right-wing anti-abortion website. Similar disinformation and distortion likely contributed to overturning Roe. According to the Washington Post, Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote a concurring opinion on the Dobbs ruling, had previously compared abortion to a “tool of modern-day eugenics.” I suspect that Justice Alito’s footnote to the court’s majority opinion stressing that “a highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are Black” was meant to fan these flames. [See the Washington Post.]
Dangers to Black women caused by the Dobbs ruling are clear. Safe, legal abortions are already difficult to secure for many people of color – especially recent immigrants challenged by complex insurance coverage, cultural stigmas, and language barriers. Now with 22 states – many in the south which is home to nearly half the country’s Black population – people of color are more likely to die from childbirth-related complications and back-alley abortions. As revealed in the Washington Post, “Mississippi, which filed the Dobbs case, has among the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the nation.”
Tayo Bero of The Guardian explained that Black women are at a higher risk for pregnancy complications and postpartum health dangers. She predicts that “Black women could see a 33% increase in pregnancy-related deaths post-Roe.” For those of us demanding reproductive rights of all women, let’s remember the disproportionate impact the recent judicial ruling will have on Black Americans.
Further Action:
1) Understand, and teach others about, the history of racism in gynecological health care, and how it reflects racism throughout the medical system. Understand how it contributed to iatrophobia, or “fear of the healer,” in Black communities. Share a ten-minute video with others entitled “The US medical system is still haunted by slavery” which explains the complex effects of the eugenics movement on Black women. Read and share my related blogs #42 and #43.
2) Contribute to groups that advocate for reproductive justice for women of color such as the In Our Own Voice - National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda or Black Women for Wellness.
3) Advocate for more studies and programs to investigate the intersection of race, gender, and health care, such as this program at the University of Toronto.
4) Share this June 24, 2022, article by Anne Branigin and Samantha Chery entitled, “Women of color will be most impacted by the end of Roe, experts say,” which explains some of the factors that lead Black women to rely on abortions more than other women.