Alyssa Lee on Undivided Rights

Blog for 2/27

In Undivided Rights, the issue of having children or not having for women and especially women of color throughout U.S. history is discussed. On page 13 it is described as “population control and voluntary birth control.”

I found this section of the book to be particularly interesting because of the examples given. The author mentions: Native Americans being given smallpox ridden blankets, increase African American women’s reproduction during slavery, and women of color had to face sterilization abuse. When people learn about these unofficial policies, we are taught that it is almost always a race/ethnicity issue. When put on a higher level of thinking, one realizes that the issue of forced birth control is also a policy against women. One begins to realize that institutional oppression did not begin with Roe v. Wade, but is one of the foundations that the U.S. was created upon.

I also find that this section is still relevant and just proves that women have been at a disadvantage in the fight for their own bodies since this country began. I also find that mainstream irrelevance of groups like CRACK and CESA to be relevant because they are fighting the same battle women all over the U.S. are doing but are still slightly unknown to most. This is all relevant my previous point of the institutional oppression stemming from the history of the U.S.. It is relevant because although there are organizations supporting women in this cause, the government still feels the need to tear down women’s rights to their bodies.

This entire section made me think about how the china gender imbalance ratio is completely off because of the population control initiative decades ago. To control their population, China implemented a one child per family rule and families kept boys because they will pass the family name down. Although this is not identical to female reproductive rights in America, it does prove that population control by any means will backfire since China now has an odd imbalance of genders.

Because of what I retained from this section, I would like to further discuss if women have actually bettered our reproductive rights situation.