Dorothy Roberts: Killing the Black Body
Apr. 9th, 2018 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaKilling the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, by law professor Dorothy Roberts, was first published in 1997, but the topic it addresses, the relationship between race and concepts of reproductive freedom, are no less fraught today than they were 20 years ago - in fact, these issues, in the era of Black Lives Matter, may be even more crucial now.
White feminism has long framed reproductive freedom as the freedom not to bear children, and advocated for access to birth control and abortion. What this fails to recognise is the ways in which reproduction for black women is a story that begins with forced rape and abduction of children during slavery, and continues through eugenicist narratives to coerced administration of birth control and forced sterilisation.
“...we need to reconsider the meaning of reproductive liberty to take into account its relationship to racial oppression. While Black women’s stories are sometimes inserted as an aside in deliberations about reproductive issues, I place them at the center of this reconstructive project. How does Black women’s experience change the current interpretation of reproductive freedom? The dominant notion of reproductive liberty is flawed in several ways. It is limited by the liberal ideals of individual autonomy and freedom from government interference; it is primarily concerned with the interests of white, middle-class women; and it is focused on the right to abortion. The full extent of many Americans’ conception of reproductive freedom is the Constitution’s protection against laws that ban abortion. I suggest an expanded and less individualistic conception of reproductive liberty that recognizes control of reproduction as a critical means of racial oppression and liberation in America. I do not deny the importance of autonomy over one’s own reproductive life, but I also recognize that reproductive policy affects the status of entire groups. Reproductive liberty must encompass more than the protection of an individual woman’s choice to end her pregnancy. It must encompass the full range of procreative activities, including the ability to bear a child, and it must acknowledge that we make reproductive decisions within a social context, including inequalities of wealth and power. Reproductive freedom is a matter of social justice, not individual choice.”
By tracing social responses to black women’s reproductive history, fertility and family choices, Roberts demonstrates the ways in which reproductive freedom has many different meanings for black women. Where white ablebodied women have in general been encouraged to have children, leading to a construction of reproductive freedom as the choice not to reproduce except on her own terms, the mass of historical and social meanings surrounding reproduction for black women leads to a far more complex formulation of what it means for them to have full autonomy over their reproduction.
Roberts begins where all narratives of black people in the Americas must begin, with the conditions of slavery. Black women were seen not only as labourers, but as the source of new slaves to add to the labour force. While systematic breeding of slaves was not common, most slaveowners were well aware of the economic benefits of black women’s fertility. Childbearing was encouraged, barrenness punished. Rape was common, both at the hands of white men, and black men chosen as mates for potentially fertile women. At the same time, black women had no rights to their children, who were legally the property of their owners. Their children might be taken from them, and sold away or rented out without any recourse. Even when their families remained intact, mothers often had little choice over the rearing of their children. As healthy slaves were required to work long hours, childrearing was often assigned to older or disabled slaves who could no longer work at hard labour.
Roberts goes on to discuss the shift in social pressures brought to bear on black women once slavery was abolished and their reproduction no longer benefits owners. The growing eugenics movement, based in a belief that a range of character traits from intelligence to moral behaviour were hereditary in nature, combined with racist constructions of black people as unintelligent, sexually promiscuous, morally lax, lazy, insubordinate, and otherwise undesirable, began to argue for limitations on reproduction among black people, as well as other “undesirable” groups. Sterilisation of both men and women in these groups, as well as limited access to prenatal and perinatal care for the poor were advocated as means of preventing the passing on of inferior genes.
“I turn to a discussion of eugenics because this way of thinking helped to shape our understanding of reproduction and permeates the promotion of contemporary policies that regulate Black women’s childbearing. Racist ideology, in turn, provided fertile soil for eugenic theories to take root and flourish. It bears remembering that in our parents’ lifetime states across the country forcibly sterilized thousands of citizens thought to be genetically inferior. America’s recent eugenic past should serve as a warning of the dangerous potential inherent in the notion that social problems are caused by reproduction and can be cured by population control.”
However, Roberts acknowledges the complexity of black attitudes toward birth control. Many black women used various forms of birth control, from abstinence to barrier methods to post-coital douching and abortion. Over the first half of the 20th century, the birth rate among black women fell to the same levels found among white women. The ambiguities result from the mixed messages for birth control. Many white birth control advocates - and some Black advocates as well - used the language of eugenics, while most black advocates talked in terms of spacing families, improving maternal health and decreasing infant mortality. At the same time, a significant number of black voices called for blacks to resist family planning as a firm of racial suicide, and indeed, to raise birth rates in order to outpace white population growth.
Roberts devotes considerable space to a discussion of the use of Norplant as a birth control method aimed at - and in some cases forced upon - poor and minority women, with particular emphasis on preventing pregnancy among unmarried teens and women on welfare. Issues ranging from unethical testing on Third World women to lack of long-term testing, to side effects, health risks and problems with implant removal, point to a ‘solution’ adopted without much thought fir the real concerns of women, as a measure to control the reproduction of the poor, and particularly women of colour. Part of the hidden coerciveness of Norplant comes from the fact that, unlike other forms of contraception, which a woman can simply decide not to use, Norplant can only be discontinued with the intervention of a medical practitioner.
“Being able to get Norplant removed quickly and easily is critical to a user’s control over reproductive decisionmaking. Yet poor and low-income women often find themselves in a predicament when they seek to have the capsules extracted. Their experience with Norplant is a telling example of how a woman’s social circumstances affect her reproductive “choices.” A woman whose insertion procedure was covered by Medicaid or private insurance may be uninsured at the time she decides to have the tubes removed. A woman who had the money to pay for implantation may be too broke to afford extraction. Some women have complained that they learned of the cost of removal—from $150 to $500—only after returning to a physician to have the implants taken out.”
Other key examples of the policing of Black women’s bodies and reproduction focused on in Roberts’ examination of race and reproductive freedom include the prosecution and incarceration of poor, and primarily black, pregnant and post-natal drug users on charges of child abuse, child neglect, and similar crimes. She shows clearly that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the goals here are not to protect black fetuses or to fight drug abuse, rather, that the factor driving such prosecutions is the desire to control black reproduction. She also dissects the American welfare system, showing how it is designed to penalise poor black women with children. A discussion of new reproductive technologies such as IVF observes the ways in which the costs if these technologies, and the fact that they are not covered by Medicaid or many insurance plans, make them inaccessible to Black women and families who are infertile or otherwise having difficulty in having a child.
Roberts concludes her examination of race and reproduction by examining the ways in which the liberal understanding of liberty as a defense of individual choice fails to provide true social justice and equality. Modern American law and society has focused on liberty as a protection from government intervention, and ignored the potential for equality that can come from government action. To ensure equality in the area of reproduction, as in many other areas, requires a balance between liberty and equality as guiding principles. This formulation of a positive, progressive idea of liberty:
“... includes not only the negative proscription against government coercion, but also the affirmative duty of government to protect the individual’s personhood from degradation and to facilitate the processes of choice and self-determination. This approach shifts the focus of liberty theory from state nonintervention to an affirmative guarantee of personhood and autonomy. Under this postliberal doctrine, the government is not only prohibited from penalizing welfare mothers or crack-dependent women for choosing to bear children; it is also required to provide subsistence benefits, drug treatment, and medical care. Ultimately, the state should facilitate, not block, citizens’ efforts to install more just and egalitarian economic, social, and political systems.”
White feminism has long framed reproductive freedom as the freedom not to bear children, and advocated for access to birth control and abortion. What this fails to recognise is the ways in which reproduction for black women is a story that begins with forced rape and abduction of children during slavery, and continues through eugenicist narratives to coerced administration of birth control and forced sterilisation.
“...we need to reconsider the meaning of reproductive liberty to take into account its relationship to racial oppression. While Black women’s stories are sometimes inserted as an aside in deliberations about reproductive issues, I place them at the center of this reconstructive project. How does Black women’s experience change the current interpretation of reproductive freedom? The dominant notion of reproductive liberty is flawed in several ways. It is limited by the liberal ideals of individual autonomy and freedom from government interference; it is primarily concerned with the interests of white, middle-class women; and it is focused on the right to abortion. The full extent of many Americans’ conception of reproductive freedom is the Constitution’s protection against laws that ban abortion. I suggest an expanded and less individualistic conception of reproductive liberty that recognizes control of reproduction as a critical means of racial oppression and liberation in America. I do not deny the importance of autonomy over one’s own reproductive life, but I also recognize that reproductive policy affects the status of entire groups. Reproductive liberty must encompass more than the protection of an individual woman’s choice to end her pregnancy. It must encompass the full range of procreative activities, including the ability to bear a child, and it must acknowledge that we make reproductive decisions within a social context, including inequalities of wealth and power. Reproductive freedom is a matter of social justice, not individual choice.”
By tracing social responses to black women’s reproductive history, fertility and family choices, Roberts demonstrates the ways in which reproductive freedom has many different meanings for black women. Where white ablebodied women have in general been encouraged to have children, leading to a construction of reproductive freedom as the choice not to reproduce except on her own terms, the mass of historical and social meanings surrounding reproduction for black women leads to a far more complex formulation of what it means for them to have full autonomy over their reproduction.
Roberts begins where all narratives of black people in the Americas must begin, with the conditions of slavery. Black women were seen not only as labourers, but as the source of new slaves to add to the labour force. While systematic breeding of slaves was not common, most slaveowners were well aware of the economic benefits of black women’s fertility. Childbearing was encouraged, barrenness punished. Rape was common, both at the hands of white men, and black men chosen as mates for potentially fertile women. At the same time, black women had no rights to their children, who were legally the property of their owners. Their children might be taken from them, and sold away or rented out without any recourse. Even when their families remained intact, mothers often had little choice over the rearing of their children. As healthy slaves were required to work long hours, childrearing was often assigned to older or disabled slaves who could no longer work at hard labour.
Roberts goes on to discuss the shift in social pressures brought to bear on black women once slavery was abolished and their reproduction no longer benefits owners. The growing eugenics movement, based in a belief that a range of character traits from intelligence to moral behaviour were hereditary in nature, combined with racist constructions of black people as unintelligent, sexually promiscuous, morally lax, lazy, insubordinate, and otherwise undesirable, began to argue for limitations on reproduction among black people, as well as other “undesirable” groups. Sterilisation of both men and women in these groups, as well as limited access to prenatal and perinatal care for the poor were advocated as means of preventing the passing on of inferior genes.
“I turn to a discussion of eugenics because this way of thinking helped to shape our understanding of reproduction and permeates the promotion of contemporary policies that regulate Black women’s childbearing. Racist ideology, in turn, provided fertile soil for eugenic theories to take root and flourish. It bears remembering that in our parents’ lifetime states across the country forcibly sterilized thousands of citizens thought to be genetically inferior. America’s recent eugenic past should serve as a warning of the dangerous potential inherent in the notion that social problems are caused by reproduction and can be cured by population control.”
However, Roberts acknowledges the complexity of black attitudes toward birth control. Many black women used various forms of birth control, from abstinence to barrier methods to post-coital douching and abortion. Over the first half of the 20th century, the birth rate among black women fell to the same levels found among white women. The ambiguities result from the mixed messages for birth control. Many white birth control advocates - and some Black advocates as well - used the language of eugenics, while most black advocates talked in terms of spacing families, improving maternal health and decreasing infant mortality. At the same time, a significant number of black voices called for blacks to resist family planning as a firm of racial suicide, and indeed, to raise birth rates in order to outpace white population growth.
Roberts devotes considerable space to a discussion of the use of Norplant as a birth control method aimed at - and in some cases forced upon - poor and minority women, with particular emphasis on preventing pregnancy among unmarried teens and women on welfare. Issues ranging from unethical testing on Third World women to lack of long-term testing, to side effects, health risks and problems with implant removal, point to a ‘solution’ adopted without much thought fir the real concerns of women, as a measure to control the reproduction of the poor, and particularly women of colour. Part of the hidden coerciveness of Norplant comes from the fact that, unlike other forms of contraception, which a woman can simply decide not to use, Norplant can only be discontinued with the intervention of a medical practitioner.
“Being able to get Norplant removed quickly and easily is critical to a user’s control over reproductive decisionmaking. Yet poor and low-income women often find themselves in a predicament when they seek to have the capsules extracted. Their experience with Norplant is a telling example of how a woman’s social circumstances affect her reproductive “choices.” A woman whose insertion procedure was covered by Medicaid or private insurance may be uninsured at the time she decides to have the tubes removed. A woman who had the money to pay for implantation may be too broke to afford extraction. Some women have complained that they learned of the cost of removal—from $150 to $500—only after returning to a physician to have the implants taken out.”
Other key examples of the policing of Black women’s bodies and reproduction focused on in Roberts’ examination of race and reproductive freedom include the prosecution and incarceration of poor, and primarily black, pregnant and post-natal drug users on charges of child abuse, child neglect, and similar crimes. She shows clearly that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the goals here are not to protect black fetuses or to fight drug abuse, rather, that the factor driving such prosecutions is the desire to control black reproduction. She also dissects the American welfare system, showing how it is designed to penalise poor black women with children. A discussion of new reproductive technologies such as IVF observes the ways in which the costs if these technologies, and the fact that they are not covered by Medicaid or many insurance plans, make them inaccessible to Black women and families who are infertile or otherwise having difficulty in having a child.
Roberts concludes her examination of race and reproduction by examining the ways in which the liberal understanding of liberty as a defense of individual choice fails to provide true social justice and equality. Modern American law and society has focused on liberty as a protection from government intervention, and ignored the potential for equality that can come from government action. To ensure equality in the area of reproduction, as in many other areas, requires a balance between liberty and equality as guiding principles. This formulation of a positive, progressive idea of liberty:
“... includes not only the negative proscription against government coercion, but also the affirmative duty of government to protect the individual’s personhood from degradation and to facilitate the processes of choice and self-determination. This approach shifts the focus of liberty theory from state nonintervention to an affirmative guarantee of personhood and autonomy. Under this postliberal doctrine, the government is not only prohibited from penalizing welfare mothers or crack-dependent women for choosing to bear children; it is also required to provide subsistence benefits, drug treatment, and medical care. Ultimately, the state should facilitate, not block, citizens’ efforts to install more just and egalitarian economic, social, and political systems.”