Beyond Carrots and Sticks: Effective Public Education and Feminist Research in Conservative States

Of course, the work in Oklahoma is not done. As we write this essay, Oklahoman reproductive rights activists continue to protest and educate the public about these and other laws that treat women as if they are too stupid to understand the consequences of their reproductive decisions. These measures include: requiring a woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound within an hour of the procedure and have its findings explained to her; requiring women to fill out a lengthy questionnaire and have this information recorded on a publicly accessible state website; and banning lawsuits against doctors who withhold information that could cause a woman to seek an abortion. Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry recently vetoed a bill that would have banned insurance companies from covering abortion and requiring women to purchase separate and special abortion insurance before a pregnancy occurs, thereby separating abortion—a usually exceedingly simple operation that can eliminate many life-threatening medical problems—categorically from health care.¹

In the struggle for reproductive justice, documenting the application of carrots and sticks, as Goodwin does so capably, is important, but it cannot be an endpoint of analysis or action. The struggle requires education, advocacy, activism, and research. Especially now. As institutions of higher education implode on the west coast and as the economic downturn depletes jobs on the east coast, the “flyover” parts of America are going to see an influx of feminist scholars. Universities and colleges in middle America have unprecedented opportunities to hire newly minted PhDs from coastal schools, which in turn may go a long way to addressing regional stereotypes. This also may tip the scales in historically conservative schools and more evenly distribute progressively minded faculty across the U.S. As feminist scholars who are working on reproductive justice issues, we need to be cognizant of this shift and its potential. Now more than ever we may have the critical mass of feminist faculty, hence the opportunity, to train students in research methods that are intersectional and interdisciplinary. Promoting well-designed empirical and qualitative research, and theorizing dynamics of power based on insights that such research yields, can dovetail significantly with local and national organizing. And our students will respond. In addition to the public education forums that made current medical and social research available to policymakers and media concerned about the Hernandez case, for example, Oklahoma students have been inspired to do their own research. A group of Oklahoma State University and University of Oklahoma undergraduates have teamed up to translate their own absurd experiences with abstinence-only sex education and CPCs into data that can be used to demonstrate their ineffectual and often deleterious consequences for young women.²

Public education, collaborative research, and insightful feminist theory are as crucial to the legal and moral victories that have been recently won in red states as is the mobilizing of grassroots women’s health activists, women in recovery, local healthcare providers, political action committees, and state policymakers. All are needed to shift the emphasis from a punitive, criminal justice approach (the stick), to a general-welfare-promoting public health approach (the carrot) that addresses the problems of pregnancy, parenting, and drug use. This requires that punitive laws and ill-conceived prosecutions be challenged. But this shift is not the full scope of the change that needs to occur. If the criminalization and regulation of women’s reproductive decisions are to be stopped, the impetus must come from the women and communities most affected by them. These communities have been poorly served by health care policies based on outdated ideas and educational models based on fear and loathing. From our experiences in Oklahoma, however, resistance from communities can be overcome by presenting them with factual, evidence-based research. It is our time to offset or counter the scare tactics, stigmatizing attitudes, and punitive policies with scholarship, public education, and outreach. Important allies and potential allies in the struggle for reproductive justice exist everywhere, “even” and especially in the red states.

1. According to an article in the Tulsa World, it was the fourth veto this session that Henry used on an abortion measure. The other three vetoes have been overridden. [↩]
2. Oklahoma students credit attending Hampshire College’s Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) annual conference on reproductive justice as a source of inspiration. Taking the CLLP conference as a model but adapting it to local needs, Oklahoma students and faculty created a regional workshop, “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Reproductive and Sexual Health,” on January 21, 2011 at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater and are planning another conference for February 2012 at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. See the Oklahoma State University Gender and Women’s Studies website and contact Oklahomans for Reproductive Justice for more information. [↩]