wgst 202 day 12 reproductive justice
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WGST 202TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Sara DiazWGST 202: Gender, Difference, and PowerGonzaga University
Reproductive Justice
Reproduction in Context
• In the context of production•Wage injustice• Family as foundation of productive
(capistalist) economy•Who supports families?
Cost Externalization
• Business strategy to maximize profits.• Hard to measure costs:• caring and reproductive work• environmental damage
• Example: Alzheimer’s Care• 17 Billion hours of unpaid care• 202.6 billion dollars worth of labor done
mostly by women.
Making New Workers
• The cost of making new workers, of reproducing the work force is “externalized” onto families• Families are needed to keep the economy
going• Favored Family Formations• Linked social problems:• Equal pay, Family planning, feminization
of poverty
Controlling Re/Production
• Concern about regulating women’s reproduction emerged simultaneously with Industrialization.• Prior, it was a private matter.• Pre-industrial family life favored many
children.• Many women used herbs, other natural
methods to prevent and terminate pregnancy.• Regulation moved reproduction into the public
domain -> feminist organizing.
Production & Reproduction• Control of reproductive processes is key to economic
production• But who controls that reproduction?• Women• Government• Healthcare• Societal/Cultural norms• Corporations• Church
• Feminists argue that women need to have the power to determine our own reproductive lives • Self-determination• Bodily Sovereignty
A Note:
•Resisting Micro-level analysis•Moral questions about reproduction
must be dealt with.
• Let’s push ourselves to ask questions about morality at the meso and macro level.
Beyond Life & Choice
• Mainstream feminist movement has framed reproductive issues through a “liberal” or rights based framework.• Centered on “Choice”• Because of race, class, sexuality, and ability
disparities this framework hasn’t been popular among marginalized women.• 1990s – Sister Song, ACRJ -> Reproductive Justice
Forced/Coerced Sterilization• Native people: some estimate that at least 25% of all fertile
Native women and 10% of Native men were sterilized in the 1970s (that decade alone) at BIH clinics.
• Puerto Rican women: 1965 estimate was that 30% or Puerto Rican mothers were sterilized. The number is remarkable given its heavily Catholic demographics
• Mexican American women: Disproportionate numbers of Chicanas, particularly those on public assistance, sterilized using federal funds in CA.
• African American Women: Forced sterilization so common it was referred to as a “Mississippi Appendectomy.”
Foster Care Disparities
Population In Care0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
14%28%
52%
41%
1%2%
MissingMixedAIANAPILatinoWhiteBlack
What’s happening here?
Environmental Toxins
• Locally: Yakima Valley• Neural Tube Defects (including anencephaly)• 31 babies born without a brain since 2010. Four
times higher than national average.• Others with Spina Bifida and other NTDs• Defects that cause spontaneous abortion
(miscarriage) are unrecorded.• Farm worker population• Pesticides known cause of NTD
• Toxins interfere with women’s reproductive freedom.
Reproductive Justice• Reproductive Justice:• Environment• Sexual Health
Education• Wage Justice• Immigrant Rights• Violence Against
Women• LGBT Rights• Youth Empowerment
Reproductive Freedom History• Roe v Wade 1973 legalizes abortion up to 28 weeks gestation• Privacy
• Hyde Amendment 1976 – banned use of federal funds • Medicaid• Federal Employee Health Benefits Program • Indian Health Services• Federal prisons, military, Peace Corps
• Federal “Partial Birth” Abortion Ban 2003• Upheld by SCOTUS in 2007• Though it remains legal to perform abortion up to 28 weeks,
certain procedures are banned in the second trimester.
Alaska Hawaii
State Level Bans
Life Only Exception
Life, Rape/Incest & Health Exceptions
Health Only Exception
No Exception
Life and Rape Exception
Life and Health Exception
Alaska Hawaii
Limited Access for Low Income Women
Life Only Exception
Life, Rape/Incest Exceptions
Alaska Hawaii
Limited Access for Young Women
Parental Consent Parental Notice
Alaska Hawaii
Gestational Limits < Roe
A few statistics• 61% of women who
choose abortion already have 1 child
• 49% are over the age of 25
• Mississippi has ZERO clinics that will provide abortion• 400k women in the
Midwest live more than 150 mi from a clinic• Only six clinics
operating in all of Texas as of 9/2014
“Choices” vs “Options”
• “Choice” indicate that we have the freedom of self-determination.
• Thought experiment:• Did you “choose” to come to Gonzaga?• Or did you select from a limited number of
options?
• Many women who seek abortion, are not “choosing” but opting for the lesser of two evils.
Controlling Reproduction
• ACRJ & Harjo -> Histories of forced reproduction/sterilization• Ties to Eugenics movements• “the belief that the human race can be ”improved”
through selective breeding; linked to racism and able-body-ism• Social Darwinism• Controlling “undesirable” populations
• Today, birth control often seems ubiquitous (everywhere) but we must understand it’s troubled history as we benefit from the sacrifices and exploitation of women who came before us.
Rights vs Justice
• Right to marry for LGBT people won’t result in justice for LGBT people• Equal Pay and Civil Rights Acts CERTAINLY reduced the
gender wage gap and job place discrimination but they did not eliminate it.• Roe v Wade and the legalization of birth control allowed
certain women to have some control over not having children but it did not ensure reproductive justice.• So, like the ACRJ, we need to starting thinking about
how to achieve wage justice to end the feminization of poverty.