The Latest Case of Reproductive Carrots and Sticks: Race, Abortion and Sex Selection
This article is a response to Michele Bratcher Goodwin's
"Reproductive Carrots and Sticks" in this issue.
In documenting the different ways reproductive freedom translates
across race, class and gender,
Michele Goodwin argues that the new fetal
drug laws (FDLs) are a punitive and punishing strategy for regulating
some women's reproduction. Like Dorothy Roberts, she argues that this
regulation is deeply embedded in reproductive hierarchies that have been
a part of American politics and society since the days of
slavery.[1]
While Goodwin contrasts the reproductive punishment of FDLs with the
supposed reproductive freedoms of assisted reproductive technologies, a
new tactic is being employed, alluding to old eugenic fears and raising
new fears of "designer babies," to argue for banning abortion based on
sex selection and race. This attempt to regulate sex selection is a
foreshadow for emerging attempts to regulate assisted reproductive
technologies.
In this "Reproductive Stick 2.0," anti-choice advocates are seeking
to outlaw sex-selective, and what they call, "race-selective" abortions.
This tactic first emerged in 2008, when Representative Trent Franks
(R-AZ) proposed the "Susan B. Anthony Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of
2008," which he re-introduced the following year as the "Susan B.
Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2009."
Citing opposition to race and gender discrimination, race-based
violence, and the United Nation's Commission on the Status of Women, the
bill purports to "prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the
basis of sex or race, and for other purposes." The bill stated that sex
selective abortions in the United States "have the effect of diminishing
the representation of women in the American population, and therefore,
the American electorate," and that the high rates of abortion among
African American women amounts to "race selective abortion" and has the
effect of diminishing the number of minorities in society.
Reproductive health care providers and abortion providers, like
Planned Parenthood of America, are the ostensible targets of this
proposed Act. The legislation would punish, by fine and/or imprisonment, anyone who
"knowingly" performs an abortion with information that it is being
sought based on the sex or race of the child or parent; anyone who uses
force or the threat of force to intentionally injure or intimidate any
person for the purpose of coercing a sex-selection or race-selection
abortion, or attempts to do so; or anyone who solicits or accepts funds
for the purpose of financing a sex-selection abortion or race-selection
abortion.[2]
"Black Children are and Endangered Species" billboard
While this federal legislation didn't advance in Congress, 2010 saw a
proliferation of similar legislation in five states—Georgia, Arizona,
Mississippi, New Jersey and Idaho, along with legislation against sex
selective abortions in Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
In Georgia, the race component of the legislation was highlighted with a
provocative series of billboards in Atlanta proclaiming, "Black Children
Are an Endangered Species." The billboards directed
viewers to a website hosted by
the Radiance Foundation and funded by Georgia Right to Life, the primary
proponent of the legislation. Featuring the striking image of a frightened
young black boy, with the words "Black and Unwanted" above his face,
this billboard campaign tapped into powerful fears about
historical and current medical mistreatment and eugenic campaigns
against Black Americans.
Leveraging a collective sense of shame, unease and outrage over
"missing girls" and racist eugenics, this legislation and campaign is
emerging as the latest tactic of the anti-abortion movement to regulate
the reproductive lives of women of color and limit access to abortion
for all women. Similar to FDLs, the proponents of this legislation tap
into deep emotions and claim to be protecting and saving babies, in this
case Black and Asian babies. Likewise, they seek to punish providers of
reproductive health services. And like FDLs, these legislative efforts
are under-inclusive. In the case of sex selection, they don't include
pre-pregnancy sex selection such as sperm sorting technology or embryo
testing in vitro, two techniques that are more expensive and offered in
fertility clinics. In terms of race and selection, they are also
under-inclusive in that they don't include the racialized marketing and
screening of sperm and egg donors, both of which are ubiquitous and
unapologetic in the use of race as a criteria for selection.
Page: 1 | 2 |
3 |
4
Next page
|
