Free Paper on Reproductive Justice: Unveiling Historical Struggles and Marginalized Women's Autonomy

1. How does Loretta Ross describe herself? With which activist organization has she worked and assumed positions of leadership?

Loretta Ross describes herself as a human rights and reproductive rights activist. Loretta contends that as a Black Feminist, she is committed to focusing on the influential role of colonialism and white supremacy in determining reproductive destinies (Ross and Rickie 2). She goes ahead and states that she offers a first-person voice and more than twenty years of experience promoting reproductive activism. Loretta has worked in SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective as a leader, which provided her with the chance to experience the excitement of constructing a movement that is now focusing on the needs of women of color facing birth, parenting, pregnancy, and abortion issues (Ross and Rickie 3).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

2. How does Rickie Solinger define herself? Identify two questions she has worked to answer.

Rickie Solinger describes herself as a white Jewish teenager who learned about the Holocaust of brutal histories of dispossession, cultural destruction, degradation, and death. Through the civil rights movement, she learned about the dignity of women and the power of voice (Ross and Rickie 4). She states that Loretta has been her ally and has played a crucial role in assisting her to see a deep connection between developing respect for other people and herself.

3. Summarize the authors’ positions on the need to be inclusive in the use of language.

Loretta and Rickie contend that the term “woman” has been dominantly used previously while discussing the language used that targeted mothers and women. Today, when the authors are writing, they use terms such as “people who can get pregnant and give birth” and “woman” (Ross and Rickie 6). The authors’ language is a reflection of gender identities and the diversity of the lived experiences of people. Therefore, the need for inclusive language should reflect the obligation to the idea that each person who can be pregnant and have children is a woman. Additionally, not every woman can or does get pregnant and conceive. Therefore, reproductive oppression is not mainly regarding genital anatomy. Today, the use of "women and girls," "mothers,” “individuals,” and “parents” are considered to be inclusive language (Ross and Rickie 8).

4. Identify the three primary principles of “reproductive justice.”

Reproductive justice definition extends beyond pro-choice or pro-life debate and has three fundamental principles that are; the right not to have a child, secondly, the right to have a child, and thirdly, the right to parent children in an environment that is safe and healthy (Ross and Rickie 9).

5. What must five community resources be available for persons who reproduce to do so in a dignified, humane manner?

Reproductive justice claims that all fertile individuals and those who reproduce and become parents need a dignified and safe context for those significant human experiences. Therefore, for this goal to be achieved, those people require community-based resources such as a living wage, health care that is of high quality, a healthy environment, education, housing, and a safety net at times when these resources fail (Ross and Rickie 9). Dignified and safe fertility management, childbirth, and parenting cannot be achieved without these resources.

6. Before the Civil War, how were women of color—African American and Native—treated by the government in terms of their ability to manage pregnancy and raise their children?

Before the Civil War, women of color in the United States were targeted in distinctive and brutal ways. A large number of the Native Americans lost their pieces of land and, besides, lost their pregnancies and children to forced marches and genocidal wars after white settlers and armies started to move westward across the North American continent (Ross and Rickie 13). A large number of women lost their fertility due to coercive sterilization programs that were race-based. The welfare laws punished the pregnancy and childbearing of women of color. Moreover, laws were created by the government, which gave authority over the separation of children from their mothers (Ross and Rickie 15). The African-American children were sold away from their families.

7. For a period after the Civil War, contraception and abortion were legal. How do the authors explain the rationale behind making both illegal? Specifically, were there different concerns about reproduction for women in general, white women, Native women, African American women, and Chinese women?

Early abortion and contraception were made legal before independence. Due to this, a woman had the freedom of seeking to terminate their pregnancies. Many white women had a strong belief in the American Revolution rhetoric; in this manner, the rhetoric exulted the "free individual," absolute rights, and liberty (Ross and Rickie 24). This rhetoric excluded most of the African American, and they were aware of it. However, states went ahead and stopped the idea of women limiting their fertility and pregnancies. In the 1820s, physicians and midwives were directed to ensure that women would restore their menses (Ross and Rickie 25). It is worth noting that by the end of the 19th century, abortion was already criminalized in all states. A federal Comstock Law was put in place in 1873 for pregnancy control and putting gynecological and obstetric matters in the physicians’ hands (Ross and Rickie 25).

The criminalization of abortion and contraception, according to some historians, was to ensure that white women brought their pregnancies to term and gave birth to all white children needed to populate the white nation. Many African-American women lived in the South and lacked the money to pay for new commercial contraceptives after the Civil War. Many of them continued to use traditional herbal preparations to control fertility (Ross and Rickie 25). Fertility and motherhood continue to be a significant danger to Native women, African-American women, and Indian women since it was a biological problem.

8. In 1935 the U.S. enacted Aid to Dependent Children to help provide for children in low-income families. Which legislation did not consider children?

When the Aid to Dependent Children was enacted in 1935 AS Social Security Act section, this program did not consider children of “immoral” unmarried mothers and many women of color (Ross and Rickie 36). Women of color were not included to keep the support of politicians from the South. An agreement was reached by President Roosevelt to exclude agricultural and domestic workers from benefits; this exclusion only covered the African American women who could quickly end up in the apartheid labor system.

9. Provide two examples of how sterilization has been used in the 20th century to control the reproduction choices of poor women, especially those of color.

The law could mandate permitting the sterilization of a woman of color to punish her for having a child and could enforce her poverty level. She could be punished for it, and the woman would be excluded from attending hospitals and her children attending school and jobs based on race (Ross and Rickie 54). Moreover, sterilization was used to enhance national strength, a better white race, diminish poverty, and upgrade public health. Prison officials have imposed forced sterilization as an approach to marking the actual gender of an individual.

Work Cited

Ross, Loretta, and Rickie Solinger. Reproductive justice: An introduction. Vol. 1. Univ of California Press, 2017.