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.