ducklingdarren asked: Do you believe that since Black women are more likely to have an abortion, that it's equivalent to propagating a genocide? Especially since the Black population is quite low.
Let me ask you a question. Between first hearing this idea proposed and sending me this message, how much time did you spend thinking about why it seems reasonable to you that black people would be committing genocide against themselves?
You can check my #racism tag for multiple explanations as to why this “theory” is desperate racist bullshit propagated by anti-choicers who lack the capacity for critical thinking.
I’ve been waiting for one of these rants to appear on my dash to rip it to shreds because i didn’t have the energy to create my own post without an example of why i am creating it. this shit had me mad reading it. and it’s nice to see the op is a coward and has deleted their words despite feeling they are in a position to dictate to us what we should or shouldn’t do.
i’m going to start by saying posts like these are anti-Black as fuck, ableist, classist and a lot of other things. this post was universal, it didn’t specify who they were speaking to. and as someone who is part of the circle that has been deemed ANGRY BLACK WOMAN, i feel this post is speaking to people directly like myself. so i will address it as such.
i talk about my identity and who i am all the time, but one aspect i don’t talk about much is being a convicted felon, something i refuse to be ashamed of because the crimes i’ve been convicted of have nothing to do with sexual, physical or emotional violence. and as a Black queer genderfluid person who deals with depression/anxiety/ptsd and is also a convicted felon, tumblr has been a godsend. it has made me feel like i am doing something when the reality is, it is unsafe for me to do so in many cases. to act as if the burden of activism and education is on the most oppressed people speaking their anger of that oppression on the internet is just absolutely absurd. of course, i believe that white people will never do the work for us, we must do it for ourselves. but in the digital age, without access to the internet and without outlets like this, i think the shape of activism would take a way different form.
i’ve done some forms of advocating. anti-war protests (was interviewed on tv for that and was in trouble for it too), protesting for cori reform, calling senators, writing letters. before i came on tumblr, my avenue for my voice was political sites, writing comments, signing petitions and even getting published in the nation once. i’ve always been the person who speaks out when i hear racism, ableism, sexism, etc. in instances where i have felt safe. i have backed up and held down many people who would not feel comfortable doing so without support. which i consider to be activism, advocating for those who are oppressed by others or letting others know why what they’ve done is wrong.
but you know what? my life has changed since then. since becoming a felon, the idea of activism is scary as fuck for me. on the one hand, i want to be involved in protests, but on the other, i don’t need anything else on my record. i have gone into massive debt to get an education and a masters degree now with the hopes that i will be able to get a job despite my record because i “educated and civilized myself.” but truth be told, i have been fired for nothing other than my record when i was already working someplace and was told numerous times was the best person they’ve had in awhile. so i also have to deal with the reality that i will never be hired in a position at my level too. this does happen in a world where a white man with a criminal record has a higher possibility of getting hired than a Black man with none. activism requires putting my body and my safety and my record on the line. a record that the worse it gets, the less opportunity i have. the more tied to poverty i am. the less access to being an american citizen i have. i lose the ability to vote in numerous states as well.
saying that the people on tumblr, who especially in my corner are Black, queer, poor/working class/lower middle class and nongender conforming need to get offline and place themselves into activism circles and “do something” not just show anger online is anti-Black. at a time where a Black person is murdered every 36 hours by police, why should we be expected to do all the heavy lifting to change the world? as usual. it’s on us. and the funny thing, is we do it. cause i know plenty of activists who are Black, latin@ and indigenous who DO activist work and that puts them in compromising positions. i have friends who have had their homes raided by the fbi for their work. and others who are undocumented and risk deportation for their activism. some who have their phones tapped. and people like myself who are being monitored constantly by surveillance online. these are activists in offline spaces and those who just advocate for themselves online.
but why the fuck are you telling people who need an outlet to express themselves to go outside and put themselves in those kinds of risks? i mean, people do it, we do it, people of color put our lives on the lines all day every day to improve the circumstances of all of the U.S. (it is all poc movements that have gotten us all of civil rights gains and most of legislation that helps us in some way or form). but to sit here and tell those who don’t have the money, don’t have the mental capacity, don’t have the support, who don’t have the ability to get there, that their voice on the internet is worthless because they aren’t “outside doing something” is rude and bullshit as fuck. you need to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.
furthermore, those who say writing and posting rage posts and other information on tumblr is not activism can eat a dick. it is. as mentioned by other bloggers, tumblr activism has gotten mouths fed, rent paid, medication bought, movies started, queer networking possible, trans* safety networks funded, prizes won for orgs that need money to stay afloat. this is activism and monetary at that, all done online. petitions are signed and circulated and some even actually work. tumblr bombing polls and calls to action on websites with fucked up material gets those things taken off, brought to the media or just taken to task. people find friends, lovers and support systems. those who might kill themselves find people do care if they live or die. those who can’t leave the house or do too much due to mental/physical handicaps are given outlets to a world they are often excluded from. i have received countless messages from people happy to know someone related to them, that they weren’t crazy because they experienced this too, that they learned so much from the information provided, that they were able to get friends help someplace offline through resources posted, etc.
YOU do not get to tell anyone what activism is when we live in a time where activism takes many forms. you certainly don’t get to tell the people I LOVE ON TUMBLR that shit. my circle of tumblr has plenty of rage posts. angry as fuck. but they get stuff done too. they create solidarity. they reveal gaslighting and white psychological terrorism. they teach each other new concepts or give a depressed person a smile. my BLACK QUEER NONGENDER-CONFORMING CIRCLE OF TUMBLR ARE THE BIGGEST ACTIVISTS I KNOW. constantly fighting for themselves and even people who don’t love them. anti-Blackness on here is so fucking real, you’d be surprised we can even wake up and post again, never mind advocate for ourselves and others. but we do each day.
you don’t know everyone’s lives. you do not know their circumstances, you don’t know what people are able to do and not do. right now my trans* Black sisters are being murdered at enormous rates, my cis and trans* Black sisters are being incarcerated at record high numbers, my people are dying one by one at 36 hour intervals, over 1 million Black men are in jail, hundreds of thousands of those people have had their voting rights stripped due to felonies. my latin@ brothers and sisters are crossing borders for safety and food, only to be met with murder and violence upon arrival. they are facing deportation while all they do is raise their families and pay taxes for people who don’t give two fucks about them. their are kids on plantations picking vegetables from fucking sun up to sun down instead of going to school. my indigenous brothers and sisters are dealing with outsider rape at a rate of 1 out of 3 women, they are dealing with prices like $65 for chicken on a reservation, corporations trying to drive through and cut down their sacred lands. with all that shit, i don’t blame a single fucking one of these people, my brothers and sisters and whatever other gender or nongender they identify with to be scared, angry, terrified. all of those things are happening solely for being Black, queer, trans*, woc or undocumented or have the appearance of the other. all of those.
and still with all that we still advocate and have activism and fight. do you know about fred hampton? do you know about leonard peltier? do you know our political prisoners? people die and go to jail for life for this shit. this is not an easy task. this is not a task to undergo alone. we need support. and if those who are too afraid to fight the world in “approved activist circles” so fucking be it. we are surviving. we can’t all be activists when we are worried if we will make it to next year or how to keep a roof over our heads or where the next meal will come from. you can’t fault people for that. and you can’t fault people who are too damn tired from fighting every fucking day who just wanna get on the computer and SCREAM THEIR FUCKING LUNGS OUT BECAUSE NO ONE IN THE WORLD LISTENS TO THEM.
fuck you and your self-righteousness. you don’t get to dictate what activism is. you don’t get to act like you haven’t had any privileges to be able to do the things you do. that you aren’t concerned with the same things some of us “angry ragers of tumblr” are about. and you don’t get to fucking demonize us for that.
That’s a very cynical manipulation of the reality that the abortion rate is higher in the African-American and Latino communities because their unplanned pregnancy rates are higher and the availability of modern contraception is lower.
And in the same breath of feigning concern about black women and black babies, abortion opponents are limiting access to contraception and defunding health care and child care programs, and all the other things that would be even more necessary if more of the unplanned, unwanted pregnancies were carried to term
OR we trust the pregnant person to make their own decisions and want any choice they make to be safe and healthy.
—Maria
Anyone else see the implicit encouragement/acceptance of violence against people who get abortions, abortion providers, clinic workers, activists, etc. in this poster? “They aren’t like us. They don’t love their children like we do. They don’t value human life. They don’t respect pregnant people. They kill babies, and they want to kill ours, too.”
Yes. And don’t use the word “abolish”. It’s reminiscent of slavery and abortion is not like slavery. And that symbol is creepy. But hey at least you used a pale-skinnned person—because Lorde knows you don’t see brown babies as “bab[ies] to love.”
It’s not just reminiscent of slavery - it’s a direct reference. AHA wants to follow in the footsteps of abolitionist Josiah Wedgwood, who distributed the seal of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of Slave Trade on accessories and household items to bring public attention to the issue.
You can see they think pretty highly of themselves and their comparison:
Since anti-choicers are so comfortable loosely and inaccurately co-opting black Americans’ struggles, I’m sure they’re working just as tirelessly on the vast and intertwined issues black people in the States face today as a result of slavery, including reproductive rights, health care, child care, and the stigma of single motherhood.
(And that they know full well that slave owners raped black women to produce more slaves, and that many enslaved women got abortions to prevent bringing another child into slavery.)
On Tuesday, anti-abortion activist Lila Rose’s group Live Action released a highly edited “undercover sting” video that claims Planned Parenthood is facilitating gender selective abortions.
Live Action claims U.S. census data and national vital statistics illustrate sex-selection is a growing problem in the United States but MediaMatters points out Centers for Disease Control data from 2008 that says 91.4% of abortions were performed before the 13th week of pregnancy, before gender is identifiable.
The following is a statement by Akiba Solomon, Colorlines.com’s gender reporter and columnist:
This sneak attack brought to you by Live Action’s Lila Rose (the female James O’Keefe) dovetails with tomorrow’s House vote on HR3451, the so-called Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA). To understand the timing of this video, lets examine the bill.
HR3451 claims to address the rising “sex-selection industry” and cites gender-based abortion tourism by “citizens of other countries.” As evidence of the “growing threat” of sex-selective abortion, the bill also cites a study by Columbia University economists who analyzed 2000 census data for U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents. Because sons outnumbered daughters, the economists concluded that their mothers must have practiced sex-selective abortion. This evidence is thin as hell, but PRENDA authors claim that “it strongly suggests that some Americans are exercising sex-selection abortion practices within the United States consistent with discriminatory practices common to their country of origin, or the country to which they trace their ancestry.”
Taken together, the bill and video are part of the same old right wing attempt to criminalize abortion under the mantle of equal rights and stoke white population anxiety. Instead of using the black genocide trope, PRENDA employs Yellow Peril dog whistles. The video supports this race-baiting legislation.
Live Action and PRENDA supporters are concern trolls. If they were, in fact, concerned about the lives of girls, they would focus on policies that support, say, living wages, jobs, affordable health care, quality public education and safety from gender-based violence rather than ginned up threats of sex-selective abortion.
"Plenty of oppressive bullshit goes down under the guise of nice. Every day, nice, caring, friendly people try to take our bodily autonomy away from us (women, queers, trans people, nonbinaries, fat people, POC…you name it, they just don’t think we know what’s good for us!). These people would hold a door for us if they saw us coming. Our enemies are not only the people holding ‘Fags Die God Laughs’ signs, they are the nice people who just feel like marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense, it’s just how they feel! We once got a very nice comment on this site that we decided we could not publish because its content was ‘But how can I respect women when they dress like – sorry to say it, pardon my language – sluts?’. This is vile, disgusting misogyny and no amount of sugar coating and politeness can make it okay. Similarly, most of the people who run ex-gay therapy clinics are actually very nice and polite! They just want to save you! Nicely! Clearly, niceness means FUCK ALL."
Concern trolls (‘we’re so ‘concerned for you’, we’re just doing it for your own good’) always think being polite about their bigotry makes it harder to spot them.
You had your 15 minutes of fame many decades ago, please stop.
I am so sick of seeing politicians and talking heads using the death of this teenager to their benefit. Mr. Sharpton if you care about this one African American boy being killed, how come you show no interest in the MILLIONS of African American lives that have been ended by abortion? Even today, in 2012 there are hundreds of African American unborn humans being destroyed in the womb. And though there’s nothing that could make that any worse than it already is, Mr. Sharpton many of these lives are being ended by white doctors, who are making good money off of slaying what is your people.
I don’t know who you’re trying to fool. You support a president who supports abortion at ANY stage in pregnancy, including late term abortions. You support a black man, who supports the PAID MURDER OF HIS OWN PEOPLE.
Do you cry for the souls lost to abortion?
Do you protest outside of clinics that purposely target poor black communities?
Are you angered by Planned Parenthoods dark, racist past?
Are you supporting pregnancy centers, so women can access free resources for their children and families?
If Travon Martin’s life was ended for $450 dollars at an abortion clinic, would you still fight for him? Would you still hold rallies? Would you still weep and pray?
Travon Martin’s life was cut tragically short, no doubt about it. Thankfully, he got to experience life, even though he only had a short 17 years to do so. But will we turn a blind eye against the Travon’s that are still in the womb?
NO. You are complete and utter SCUM for making Trayvon Martin’s murder by a racist man and a racist society about you and your RACIST FUCKING ANTICHOICE AGENDA. You think I can’t see through you? You think PoC can’t see through you and your disingenuous lies? This is just further proof that white, christian antis don’t give a fuck about Black people once they’re born. You gotta use their deaths for propaganda so you can control pregnant Black people. Let’s get a few things straight right now:
Spell the kid’s name right, first off. TRAYVON MARTIN. Learn it, burn it into your memory, and ask yourself why you feel entitled to take such a stance against MoC like Rev. Al Sharpton and President Barack Obama.
There is no “black genocide” happening when pregnant people of color get abortions. They don’t have it in for black embryos. They aren’t aiding in the destruction of their own people. They are utilizing their reproductive rights! JFC.
Planned Parenthood does not “target black neighborhoods.” This idea that abortion clinics are targeting black neighborhoods is patently false and has been thoroughly debunked. Guttmacher has a report that found that fewer than 1 in 10 abortion clinics are in neighborhoods that are predominantly black. Further, they found that 63% of clinics were in neighborhoods where one half or more of residents were non-hispanic white. They also have a followup report.
Black pregnant people do have higher rates of abortion, but that’s because they have higher rates of unintended pregnancy (67%). And that’s a result of INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM, poverty, discrimination, lack of access to healthcare and contraception and sex education, among other things. In addition, in terms of total numbers Non-Hispanic Black pregnant people make up only 30% of total abortions whereas Non-Hispanic White pregnant people account for 36%. Lastly, the fertility rate of Black and White people capable of being pregnant are on par with one another and the population growth of the Black community is not in decline due to high abortion rates.
Here’s what a WoC thinks of your offensive and derogatory billboards and racist claims about black people killing their own people with abortion [again, burn it into your memory, you might learn something]:
“Billboard Babylon” by Cherisse Scott
Black Children Are An Endangered Species?
Every 21 Minutes The Next Possible Leader Is Aborted?
The Most Unsafe Place For An African American Child Is In My Womb?
I Guess You Assumed You Could Say What You Wanted In Jesus’ Name
And I Would Let It Slide
Let It Ride Like You Rode A Ship And Talked Some Shit
To Bring Me To A Land That Wasn’t Mine
Told My King I’d Be Fine And That You’d Be Kind
But As The Story Goes 500 Years Later
And You Still Lying
You Wasn’t Trying To ‘Make Me Betta’
At Night Together We Conceived That Child
Forced Me To Breed That Child
More Stock To Tend More Crops For Your Hard Labor
Back Broke, Culture Choked
Vilifying Me ‘Cause I’m Trying To Survive
Blaming Me Of Committing Genocide?
I Just Been Trying To Live Inside America And This Dream
Trying To Keep Hope Alive While You Keep The Pope Alive
And The Pedophiles Who Would Rape That Same Child And Sweep It Under Rugs
Hail Mary’s And Hugs With Hues Of Red White And Blue
With Liberty And Justice For Only You
My Womb Produced All The Leaders You Constantly Kill
Every 21 Minutes A Black Child Is Faced With The Real Deal
On 58th & State
Swallowed The Blue Pill But The Matrix Is Hate, Racial Profiling, And Rape
Prayin’ For A Clean Slate After Bargains And Pleas
Endangered In A Land Of Thieves, But A Species?
Insensitivity At Its Best
Culturally Incompetent
Civil Unrest
Misinformed
Unworthy To Lead A Charge Then Charge Me With Murder!
Where Are You After Our Babies Are Born?
You Scorn, Jack Welfare & Health Reform
Sons And Daughters Mourned Over Caskets And Graves
But Not By My Hand
Ain’t Never Been My Plan To Kill The Next Black Man
Yet You Stand Blameless As If You Really Give A Damn
You Eating Filet Mignon, Baby Eating Spam
Food Deserts, Polluted Air
Shit Schools Setting Rules For Ritalin Ridden Babies
You Take A Time Out!
And Put Some Time In
Cause You Don’t Comprehend My Beginning Or My End
Covering My Roots Like Thieves Cover Tracks
One Nation Under God
Indivisible ‘Til We Visualized A Leader
Targeting Me Again As A Breeder
With His Picture To Mock Me
Billboards To Shock Me
This Ain’t Shit But The Next Plan To Block Me
But I See You…Pharisee.
Black Preachers Gon’ Wild
Crucifying Queens
Pimpin’ King James For Fame
In Jesus’ Name Pitting Blame
Like God Is Pleased
You The Disease In The Village That We Just…Can’t…Shake
But My Back Is Something You Just…Can’t…Break
Flexible Like The Willow
Bosom Soft Like A Pillow That Was Used To Nurse
Yo Foul Ass
If I Wasn’t Spiritual I’d Curse
Yo Foul Ass
But You Already Done
Til You Do Right By Me The Race Ain’t Run, The Spin Ain’t Spun
You Think You’ve Won But It’s Only Just Begun
Like A Sucka Punch When You Least Expect It
I’ll Be There
Leading A Healthy Life In Spite Of Your Hypocrisy
I’ll Be There
Raising A Healthy Family Rooted In Democracy
I’ll Be There
Doing What Black Women Have Always Had To Do In Spite Of You
The argument leaves Black women facing the accusation that they are either fools or murderers—and either way complicit in what Mark Crutcher says is Planned Parenthood’s sinister plan for “convincing the target group to commit mass suicide.” The accusation cuts to the heart of an intersection of sexism and racism for Black women, who have historically been pressed to choose allegiance between two aspects of their beings: their gender and the race.
It continues today. Maame Mensima-Horn, an African American activist based in Miami who consulted for SisterSong, says that the “Black genocide” argument has remained a male-driven conversation that shuts out women of color and ignores the role they have played in the reproductive justice movement. MensimaHorn sees a new generation of male activists relegating women to “breeder” status and blaming them for a deficit in the Black population.
It seems a neat return to the 1920s debate in the Black community about how to best uplift the race. W.E.B. DuBois argued for “quality versus quantity,” saying that Black interests were best met by family planning that allowed parents to invest more in fewerchildren, not by simply birthing greater numbers. In 2010, Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life seems to take the latter position, saying that if Black women hadn’t had abortions, “we would be 59 million strong.”
The emphasis underscores a history of sexism in the Civil Rights Movement and its institutions, says Gray, in which Black women’s intellectual and physical labor was the backbone of the movement yet was rarely acknowledged. To day, “Black genocide” movement leaders, such as Childress and King, emphasize male leadership in both the movement and church—not surprising in conservative circles, but the destructive effect on women of color continues.
For Gray, this kind of sexism is a result of White fundamentalist outreach as well as a symptom of a larger problem: the breakdown of political education in Black politics.
He says, The result of it is that we have people claiming that the maafa is the abortion of black kids, instead of what it really is: the great catastrophe related to the slave trade. It means a bunch of frauds can rewrite your history and make it everything that it’s not. The freedom movement, which is what civil rights is about, is about the freedom of citizens to determine their lives for themselves and make their own opportunities.
And not, Grays says, to become a mother “because these people think you ought to be a mother. ”
How about what Sister Song thinks of your bullshit?
Our opposition research revealed how data and facts were mis-used by anti-abortionists to posit a “conspiracy theory” based on a historically racist past to claim that policymakers, black leaders, health officials, and community activists who support reproductive justice are all part of a scheme to kill off the black race. The cornerstone of their genocide theory is the fact that the black birth rate has declined over a number of years. While birthrates for all races of women have also declined for decades because of educational and economic opportunities, and increased reproductive health services, abortion opponents never mention the decision making of black women and how our improving educational and economic status influenced our reproductive choices.
Black women have always controlled our fertility when we could, even during the horrific conditions of enslavement. We brought knowledge from Africa as midwives that helped us practice birth control and have abortions. After the end of slavery, we were more determined than ever to end the forced breeding of our bodies, and we cut our birth rate in half in the first 40 years after the Civil War, 110 years before abortion or birth control was legalized. We continued this intentional decline as part of our racial uplift strategy, to have fewer children to provide more opportunities for the ones we did have. Ignorance of our history and lies about our agency malign the memories of our ancestors.
Black women, however, do have three times more abortions than white women, a statistic anti-abortionists use to demonize abortion providers. In fact, black women do have more unintended pregnancies, have less access to contraception, stay single longer, often have sex earlier, are poorer, are more vulnerable to childhood sexual abuse, and experience single motherhood much more than their white counterparts. Sixty-one percent of black women who have abortions already have children. The higher rate of abortion is an understandable outcome of the social context in which we find ourselves.
Higher unintended pregnancy rates are not a new phenomenon for black women. Before the legalization of abortion in 1973, African American women were thirteen times more likely to die from illegal abortions than white women. For reproductive justice activists, the solution to reduce the need for abortions is to help black women have fewer unintended pregnancies and to eliminate the obstacles that interfere with personal decision making.
We emphasized the agency and decision making of black women to refute their “disappearing race” narrative. Using historical data and current work by black women’s organizations, we projected the image of strong black women in defense of our own bodies, not the puppets of either the medical industry or the anti-abortion movement.
Another anti-abortion tactic was to claim that abortion clinics are “always” located in African American communities, especially by Planned Parenthood. In Georgia, we were able to easily refute this claim by presenting demographic data that proved that of the 15 abortion clinics in our state, only 4 are in predominantly black neighborhoods. Abortion opponents frequently use this “geographical” tactic against providers to bolster their conspiracy theories. While we were in the middle of the fight in Georgia, we were contacted by a Planned Parenthood clinic in Nashville that had recently relocated near an African American community for economic reasons that had nothing to do with race, but they were also accused of selecting their location to “kill black babies.” An accusatory billboard was erected directly across the street from the new clinic.
We retold the story of Margaret Sanger and her allegedly racist agenda. Left unchallenged, their narrative about genocide would powerfully echo in the black community. We decided to do our own research on Sanger and present the facts from the perspectives of black women.
We contacted Sanger’s biographer, Ellen Chesler, and asked Joyce Follet, an expert on Planned Parenthood’s archives in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, to provide original source materials and information. They provided a wealth of historical evidence that belied the allegations of our opponents. Most importantly, we were able to prove that African American leaders, particularly women, had worked with Sanger in the 1930s to ask for clinics to be opened in black communities. We challenged their historical revisionism by citing famous leaders like Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Dubois, Walter White, Mary Church Terrell, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and organizations like the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the National Council of Negro Women. We dared them to call these icons of the civil rights movement pawns of a racist agenda. In the eyes of the black community, our opponents had an uphill climb to prove they knew more about helping the African American community than the famous legends they were maligning.
African American women who care about reproductive justice know that the limited membership in the Black anti-abortion movement doesn’t represent our views and we are not fooled into thinking that they care about gender justice for women. In fact, if they had their way, we would be re-enslaved once again, based on our fertility.
[…]
They tell African American women that we are now responsible for the genocide of our own people. Talk about a “blame the victim” strategy! We are now accused of “lynching” our children in our wombs and practicing white supremacy on ourselves. Black women are again blamed for the social conditions in our communities and demonized by those who claim they only want to save our souls (and the souls of our unborn children). This is what lies on steroids look like.
[…]
The sexism in their viewpoints is mind-boggling. To them, Black women are the poor dupes of the abortion rights movement, lacking agency and decision-making of our own. In fact, this is a reassertion of Black male supremacy over the self-determination of women. It doesn’t matter whether it is from the lips of a man or a woman. It is about re-enslaving Black women by making us breeders for someone else’s cause.
I am reminded of the comments of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress, who dismissed the genocide argument when asked to discuss her views on abortion and birth control:
To label family planning and legal abortion programs “genocide” is male rhetoric, for male ears. It falls flat to female listeners and to thoughtful male ones. Women know, and so do many men, that two or three children who are wanted, prepared for, reared amid love and stability, and educated to the limit of their ability will mean more for the future of the Black and brown races from which they come than any number of neglected, hungry, ill-housed and ill-clothed youngsters.
[…]
But mostly, we need to let the world know that they do not speak for Black women. As my mother would say, “they might be our color, but they are not our kind.”
Click link for transcript and background info from Colorlines^.
In conclusion:
TRAYVON MARTIN was 17 years old. He had hopes and dreams. He had friends. He had a family that loved him, a family that is grieving for him and STILL haven’t gotten justice for his brutal and cold-blooded murder. Don’t you dare compare this young man to a fucking embryo. That’s disgusting and dehumanizing and a belittling of what PoC are feeling right now. How dare you co-opt a murder and use it against Black people capable of getting pregnant to insinuate that their desire to not be pregnant is destroying their entire race and is the same as a racist piece of shit killing someone’s child?!
This is a fellow white person telling you to get off your self-righteous high horse so PoC don’t have to deal with your racist ass ever again, especially not during their time of mourning.
I just saw the quote from Margaret Sanger about how she said the most merciful thing a (large) family can do is to kill the an infant again. You can’t use this as an argument.
Here’s a lesson on why: Your Pope was a Hitler Youth. Your Pope was deeply involved in an organization that rounded up millions of people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, disabilities, and anything else they didn’t like with the sole purpose of killing them.
Now stop for a second. What are you about to say? What are you thinking? Are you thinking, “But that was years ago!” or, “He didn’t have a choice!” Because you’re right. It was years ago and he didn’t have a choice.
So you acknowledge the fact that context is important. Why isn’t it important for Margaret Sanger? You acknowledge that choice is important for the Pope, why isn’t it important for women today? You’re thinking that we can’t use a person’s past against them, the same is true for Margaret Sanger (and Planned Parenthood.)
Margaret anger said that in the 20;s, about large miner families where many of the children died painful and slow deaths before their first birthday. Context is alwaysimportant, don’t pretend it’s not.
Stop lying. Stop manipulating. And stop thinking that people are too stupid to find out some facts, because they’re not.
Yeah, this always rubs me the wrong way. 1) it’s the genetic fallacy and 2) Sanger was a product of her time and no one on our side is trying to claim she was something she wasn’t. She said plenty of really blatantly bad things, so why take other things out of context that actually aren’t that wrong? It makes you look underhanded. Like the merciful quote. How many of you antichoicers have actually read the quote in context and know what she was actually saying?
She was being facetious not prescriptive. How about you actually look at the original source in context before talking about something you know nothing about? Was Margaret Sanger perfect? Hardly. She did and said a lot of things which were and still are unacceptable. But she was also a product of her time. Even people we like and hold in high esteem, such as Gandhi, have held racist attitudes. Further, if you bothered to read this chapter from her book you’d know she was talking about how in the early 1900s excessively large families increased the morality rate for subsequent children, by quite a bit actually. This was due to a lack of resources and/or the health toll on the woman of enduring multiple pregnancies which, of course, affects the health of the newborn. This is far from a heartless passage in the book. In fact she’s expressing worry and horror about what impoverished women and their families were facing during that time period.
[…]
The outrage upon the woman does not end there, however. Excessive childbearing is now recognized by the medical profession as one of the most prolific causes of ill health in women. There are in America hundreds of thousands of women, in good health when they married, who have within a few years become physical wrecks, incapable of mothering their children, incapable of enjoying life.
“Every physician,” writes Dr. Wm. J. Robinson in Birth Control or The Limitation of Offspring,” knows that too frequent childbirth, nursing and the sleepless nights that are required in bringing up a child exhaust the vitality of thousands of mothers, make them prematurely old, or turn them into chronic invalids.”
[…]
If its effects upon the mother and the wage-earning father were not enough to condemn the large family as an institution, its effects upon the child would make the case against it conclusive. In the United States, some 300,000 children under one year of age die each twelve months. Approximately ninety per cent of these deaths are directly or indirectly due to malnutrition, to other diseased conditions resulting from poverty, or, to excessive childbearing by the mother.
The direct relationship between the size of the wage-earner’s family and the death of children less than one year old has been revealed by a number of studies of the infant death-rate. One of the clearest of these was that made by Arthur Geissler among miners and cited by Dr. Alfred Ploetz before the First International Eugenic Congress. 2 Taking 26,000 births from unselected marriages, and omitting families having one and two children, Geissler got this result:
[chart from link goes here but won’t format on tumblr]
Thus we see that the second and third children have a very good chance to live through the first year. Children arriving later have less and less chance, until the twelfth has hardly any chance at all to live twelve months. This does not complete the case, however, for those who care to go farther into the subject will find that many of those who live for a year die before they reach the age of five. Many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the, sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. The same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members. Moreover, the overcrowded homes of large families reared in poverty further contribute to this condition. Lack of medical attention is still another factor, so that the child who must struggle for health in competition with other members of a closely packed family has still great difficulties to meet after its poor constitution and malnutrition have been accounted for.
A fact sheet from Planned Parenthood that explains many of her quotes which are often taken out of context can be found HERE. [The quote in question is on page 4].
And another fact sheet that gives some background and context on her and her work can be found HERE.
2011 marked a banner year in the Republican war on woman’s health. Close to 1,000 anti-abortion bills sped through state legislatures as the GOP-led House led a “comprehensive and radical assault” on a federal level. But in surveying their arsenal this year, 10 bills stood out as particularly perturbing and far-reaching efforts to stymie women’s access to abortion services, birth control, and vital health services like breast cancer screenings. Here are ThinkProgress’s nominations for the most extreme attacks on a woman’s right to choose:
– Redefining Rape: Last May, every House Republican and 16 anti-choice Democrats passed H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act. Anti-choice activists Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) tried to narrow the definition of rape to “forcible rape,” which meant that women who say no but do not physically fight off the assault; women who are drugged or verbally threatened and raped; and minors impregnated by adults would not qualify for the rape and incest exception in the Hyde Amendment. Smith promised to remove the language but used “a sly legislative maneuver” that essentially informs the courts that statutory rape cases will not be covered by Medicaid should the law pass and be challenged in court.
– Abortion Audits: The No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act also bans using tax credits or deductions to pay for abortions or insurance. Thus, a woman who used such a benefit would have to prove, if audited, that her abortion “fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions.” This requirement turns the Internal Revenue Service into “abortion cops” who, agents noted, would have to force women to give “contemporaneous written documentation” that it was “incest, or rape, or [her] life was in danger” which made an abortion necessary.
– Let Women Die: This October, House Republicans also passed the “Protect Life Act”, known by women’s health advocates as the “Let Women Die” bill. The measure allows hospitals that receive federal funds to reject any woman in need of an abortion procedure, even if it is necessary to save her life. Though federal law already prohibits federal funding of abortions, the GOP insisted that the health care law “contains a loophole that allows those receiving federal subsidies to use the money to enroll in health care plans that allow abortion services.”
– Personhood: Mississippi entertained the idea of passing a “personhood” amendment to its constitution this year, one that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” The measure’s “profoundly ambiguous” language regarding the definition of fertilization not only would ban all abortions, it could potentially outlaw birth control, stem cell research, and in vitro fertilization for couples struggling to conceive. Mississippians rejected the amendment but personhood activists are making headway with versions for other states and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is championing a national personhood amendment.
– Race/Sex Abortions: Taking their queue from Arizona, House Republicans introduced the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) — a so-called “civil rights” bill that bans physicians from performing abortions based on the fetus’s race or sex. The problem of selective abortion is virtually non-existent, as not one state official or independent research offered any evidence of race-based abortions. Only 5 percent of abortions occur after the point when a fetus’s sex can be determined. Arizona’s measure, now law, sends doctors and clinicians to jail for three years if they knowingly provide such abortions. The federal bill PRENDA allows for civil suits against the physicians.
– Forced Ultrasounds: Several states pushed bills that force doctors to show a woman seeking abortion services an ultrasound of the fetus, and in some cases, describe the image to her. The Kentucky bill, for instance, required doctors to describe the image if the woman chose to avert her eyes or face a $250,000 fine for disobeying the law. The bills are designed to dissuade women from undergoing the procedure, and in Michigan’s case, provide a “gift to the medical device industry” by forcing doctors to use “the most advanced ultrasound equipment available” to get the most “distinct” image of the fetus possible. North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (D-NC) vetoed her state’s version of the bill, viewing it as “a dangerous intrusion into the confidential relationship that exists between women and their doctors.”
– Fetal Pain: This year, multiplestates pushed legislation limiting or banning abortions past 20 – 22 weeks “based on disputed research that fetuses an feel pain at that point of development.” The idea is widely panned by many in the medical field, with the Journal of the American Medical Associationdetermining that “pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester.” Regardless of the science, Republican lawmakers and even presidential candidate Rick Perry endorsed the fetal pain concept in order to challenge the Roe v. Wade ruling and push an earlier ban on abortions. So discredited is the concept of fetal pain that even a Kansas Republican slammed the “false research,” adding “I would be embarrassed to be a state that bases its laws on untruths.”
– Heartbeat Bill: Ohio Republicans are leading other states on the path to pass the “heartbeat bill,” which, if enacted, will be “the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the nation.” The bill outlaws abortions if a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can occur as early as “six to seven weeks into pregnancy” or before a woman even knows she is pregnant. There is no exception in the bill for rape, incest, or mental health of a woman. What’s more, the bill forces doctors to wait until a woman is actually in danger of dying to ensure the abortion falls under the “threat to life” exception.
– Government Shutdown: The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is an international development agency that promotes universal access to reproductive health services. UNFPA does not, nor has it ever, funded abortions — as dictated by its steering document and by its members. But as Matt Yglesias reported, Republicans were determined to believe that UNFPA funds abortion and thus held up negotiations to fund the government with a policy rider eliminating funding for UNFPA. U.S. law also forbids foreign funding to any entity that supports abortion, but House Republicans were so committed to their unfounded belief that the U.S. might be doing so that they threatened to shut down the entire government over it.
– Attack On Planned Parenthood: While simultaneously trying to ban abortions outright, GOP lawmakers on a state and federal level launched a full-scale effort to defund Planned Parenthood. Only 3 percent of the women’s health organization’s services are related to abortion, but it’s association with abortion compelled Republicans to enact legislation cutting or completely defunding Planned Parenthood clinics. Without the funds, many clinics across the country were forced to close, leaving hundreds of thousands of women without vital services like breast cancer screenings, STD testing, and contraception. Texas, the largest state to defund the organizations, may alsoshut down the entire Women’s Health Program that served 125,000 Texas women in 2012 because some of the family planning clinics in the program are affiliated with Planned Parenthood. Arizona even passed a law banning charity contributions to any organization that is related to abortions or even donates to an organization that is related to abortions. Indeed, this year’s Republican war on Planned Parenthood left thousands of low-income women and children who benefit from tangential health programs as collateral damage.
"Some nineteenth century feminists opposed abortion because it threatened the social status of women. The mostly middle-class, white leadership of the women’s movement thought abortion represented the misfortune and inferior morality of working class women and prostitutes. Thus, feminists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were unable and unwilling to advocate for legalized abortion. Perhaps the complexity of the issues overwhelmed their good intentions and caused them to do unintentional harm."
You have to consider the historical context in which feminist opposed abortion. Ciswomen’s roles were almost completely different a century ago. Abortion procedures weren’t nearly as safe. Classism and racism absolutely influenced the feminists’ stance on abortion, as seen above, which fed into concerns about the shrinking population of “desirable” people (white, able-bodied, Christian, upper-class).
If anyone has more information on the history of anti-abortion feminism, I’d love to see it.
No woman’s reproductive choices should be subjected to more scrutiny or control based on her racial or ethnic background. Nor should women be stigmatized for their choices. These efforts represent cynical politics at their worst, and are out of touch with our nation’s values and priorities.
[…]
The Franks bill exploits the very real problems of racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination while failing to offer any genuine solutions that would eliminate disparities in health care access and information. Rather than attacking a woman’s right to choose, lawmakers with a sincere interest in addressing racism and gender bias should support policies that work to combat the bias and stereotypes that continue to plague our society. This alternative approach would unify – not divide – our country and could achieve important advances without taking away any woman’s right to make her own personal, private medical decisions.
They also mention that, “Rep. Franks currently has a five-percent rating from the NAACP on civil rights; has voted against the equal-pay bill; voted not to extend the State Children’s Health Insurance Program; and backed efforts to cut funding for prenatal care and contraception.”
I’m writing today to ask my fellow women of color reproductive justice activists and our allies to take a united stand against the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act(PRENDA), a race- and sex-specific anti-abortion bill thatwent before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution today. I cannot repeat enough times the urgency of moving quickly to act in solidarity.
“This is a federal version of legislation that a coalition of women-of-color organizations defeated at the local level in Georgia. It attempts to restrict women of color’s access to abortion and prenatal care in the name of “civil rights.” This bill seeks to protect “unborn Americans” by banning race- and sex-selection abortions.However, the argument that fetuses must be protected from the women of color relies on racist stereotypes about entire communities:
First, that Black women are selfish, irresponsible, and incapable of making reproductive decisions on their own behalf
Second, that Asian women mindlessly reproduce “son preference” and bring “dangerous values” into the country.”
This is incredibly important and I’m asking all of you to help. We need to move on this immediately.
Let’s be clear: There is flagrant hypocrisy tainting the GOP’s assault on Planned Parenthood. They accuse Planned Parenthood of eugenics, while simultaneously flooding their proposed policies with the same. The dysgenic nature of our healthcare, welfare, and tax system—which prolongs the lives of those marginalized groups in society who would otherwise fall victim to natural selection—leads Conservatives to attempt to implement eugenics into a capitalist system. There have been studies proving that an improvement in the quality of healthcare, nutrition, and public social services, directly increases population growth; yet these are the very programs that conservatives would like to see stripped from the budget. By removing them, they successfully blur the lines between church and state, strip women of their reproductive rights based on nothing more than religious conjecture, and deceptively facilitate the genocide they attempt to blame on Planned Parenthood.
I just want to add that I find it incredibly hypocritical and disturbing that antichoicers cling to Sanger’s eugenicist past (which has nothing to do with the Planned Parenthood of today) while they propose policies of eugenics right now.
And of course all of this is merely a continuation of the “welfare queen” stereotype created and perpetuated by Republicans; a party whose platform is built on racism, classism, and sexism.
And DFCS came back in November 2008 for her fifth child, Debbi, just 14 days old.
“I begged them not to take my baby,” said Domitina Mendez, 24, “but the interpreter told me to calm down or it was going to be worse.”
Since then, the five children have been cared for by a foster family who wants to adopt them, even as the Mendezes try to regain custody.
A hearing to have their case reopened is set for Thursday in Whitfield County Juvenile Court after a June 2011 ruling that terminated their parental rights.
In her ruling, Judge Connie Blaylock said she didn’t believe the parents could care adequately for the five children with their complicated medical needs and the dozens of medical appointments they require every month.
But advocates working with the family believe their inability to speak English and their illegal status were the main factors that led to the rights termination.
yeah, you know what? I think this has less to do with them speaking spanish, and more to do with that big bolded part up there— US citizens want some children. And what better way to get some cheap home made kids without having to worry about birth family contact attempts or wait for years and years?
![ceasesilence:
bebinn:
prochoicegeneration:
OR we trust the pregnant person to make their own decisions and want any choice they make to be safe and healthy.
—Maria
Anyone else see the implicit encouragement/acceptance of violence against people who get abortions, abortion providers, clinic workers, activists, etc. in this poster? “They aren’t like us. They don’t love their children like we do. They don’t value human life. They don’t respect pregnant people. They kill babies, and they want to kill ours, too.”
Yes. And don’t use the word “abolish”. It’s reminiscent of slavery and abortion is not like slavery. And that symbol is creepy. But hey at least you used a pale-skinnned person—because Lorde knows you don’t see brown babies as “bab[ies] to love.”
It’s not just reminiscent of slavery - it’s a direct reference. AHA wants to follow in the footsteps of abolitionist Josiah Wedgwood, who distributed the seal of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of Slave Trade on accessories and household items to bring public attention to the issue.
You can see they think pretty highly of themselves and their comparison:
Since anti-choicers are so comfortable loosely and inaccurately co-opting black Americans’ struggles, I’m sure they’re working just as tirelessly on the vast and intertwined issues black people in the States face today as a result of slavery, including reproductive rights, health care, child care, and the stigma of single motherhood.
(And that they know full well that slave owners raped black women to produce more slaves, and that many enslaved women got abortions to prevent bringing another child into slavery.)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4yo0xcGZi1rs34yvo1_500.jpg)
