The body and autonomy of a woman have always remained a topic of political and religious debate across the world. The author and sociologist, Jeanne Flavin, contextualizes women’s reproductive rights in her book, “Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America.” She discusses progressive arguments through a historical lens, focusing on topics of abortion, family planning, parental rights of incarcerated women, and the many economic, social, and geographic restrictions that women face on their own individual choices. Women endure living under patriarchal regulation, in which Adrienne Rich – a feminist author – states: “aims at ensuring that that potential – and all women – shall remain under male control.” Flavin further understands and pinpoints:
“By restricting some women’s access to abortion and obstetric and gynecologic care, by telling some women not to procreate and pressuring them to be sterilized, by prosecuting some women who use drugs and become pregnant, and by failing to support the efforts of incarcerated women and battered women to rear their children, the law and the criminal justice system establish what a “good woman” or a “fit mother” should look like and how conception, pregnancy, birth, and child care and socialization are regulated.”
Because women are inherently tied to reproduction in a way that a man is not, women are targets in their freedom to reproduce. Gender is a fixed, biological trait according to the criminal justice system. The lack of proper responses to rape, domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abduction shows how America continues to promote male dominance over women and therefore perpetuating limits to women’s reproductive rights.
Historical Context
In 1960, the FDA approved a pill composed of hormones made to prevent pregnancy by stopping or reducing ovulation – otherwise known as the birth control pill. It took five years for the pill to be approved as a contraceptive and become a legal form of birth control nationwide across America. At the time, usage of an oral contraceptive faced major opposition from religious institutions as well as from states who banned the use of contraceptives to both single and married people, leading to the Supreme Court case of Griswold v. Connecticut of 1965. Nonetheless, the court ruled that married couples held the Constitutional right to privacy – regarding decisions about childbearing that included a right to use birth control. In 1972, the case of Eisenstadt v. Baird extended the right to contraception to unmarried individuals.
The landmark decision of Roe v. Wade (1973) ruled that the U.S. Consitution protects a women’s choice to have an abortion or not without excessive governmental restriction. The case came from “Jane Roe” – a name used to protect the plaintiff’s identity – in which she filed a lawsuit against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas’s abortion laws were unconstitutional. At the time, abortion in the State of Texas was illegal except when it was necessary to save a mother’s life. Although the ruling was monumental, it contains a few clauses that were put in place to ‘balance’ that of the individual’s right with the interest of state regulations. The Court said that during the first trimester, state governments cannot prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, state governments can require reasonable health regulations; and during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life of the mother.
Present-Day Limitations
On Thursday, June 24, 2021, representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spoke at the House floor to argue false information. Greene equated the usage of Plan B – an emergency contraceptive – to that of abortion, saying that it has the power of killing a baby already in the womb. It is important to understand that all contraceptives – whether it be a birth control pill or an emergency contraceptive like Plan B – are designed to avert pregnancy by preventing the sperm from reaching the eggs. However, conservative politicians such as Greene often avoid the use of factual, scientific-backed information about contraception, abortion, and reproduction to further their arguments that such restrictions on women’s bodies are lawful. By implementing language that criminalizes the use of contraceptives, the possibility of expanding women’s reproductive rights is instead limited on purpose.
Similarly, Governor Greg Abbot signed Texas Senate Bill 8 of the 87th legislature – a bill that will prohibit abortions once a fetal “heartbeat” is detectable, which often occurs before a woman knows she is pregnant, on May 19, 2021. According to the New York Times, the law further prohibits officials from enforcing the law, but has deputized “ordinary citizens — including from outside Texas — to sue clinics and others who violate the law,” in which they will be awarded “at least $10,000 per illegal abortion if they are successful.” Such a drastic law is not only hurtful to a woman’s reproductive rights, but also to democracy itself. The State of Texas is not alone in its views on women’s reproductive rights – states in the South and on the Rust Belt have historically been hostile toward abortion laws. Alabama, for example, has the most restrictive abortion law in the United States as it bans abortion at any stage of pregnancy under any circumstance. Although in 2019 the District courts ruled that the law was unconstitutional, “Alabama maintains medically unnecessary restrictions, including mandatory ultrasounds at abortion appointments and a required 48-hour waiting period before the procedure can take place.”
Conclusion
The Guttmacher Institute, a leading research and policy organization that aims at advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, reported in 2011 that “nearly half (45%, or 2.8 million) of the 6.1 million pregnancies in the United States were unintended.” Present-day limitations continue to criminalize abortion and reproductive rights, but if state governments were to work together, they can still protect and advance women’s health and reproductive rights in a multitude of ways. The main focus should be towards preserving and expanding access to abortion care through proactive policy and legislation in the states. Additionally, it is imperative to improve the access women have to contraceptives, including expanding coverage, diversifying delivery models, and offering additional types of contraceptives. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood need to be equally protected as they provide key affordable, sexual health care to all in the United States and globally. With the advocacy and donations from citizens for improved sexual healthcare, state legislators and governors must work to enact the changes their citizens need that will protect women’s health and rights.
Cover Art designed by GroundBreakers Network Engagement Fellow Gabrielle Garcia.
References:
“A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: Women’s Reproductive Rights.”
Georgetown Law Library, Georgetown University Law Library,
guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=592919&p=4172361.
Baker, Carrie N, et al. “A Brief History of Birth Control in the U.S.” Our Bodies Ourselves, 8
July 2020,
www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/a-brief-history-of-birth
-control/.
Flavin, Jeanne. Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America.
NYU Press, 2009. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qffnc. Accessed 9 July 2021.
Tavernise, Sabrina. “Citizens, Not the State, Will Enforce New Abortion Law in Texas.” The
New York Times, 13 July 2021.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/abortion-law-regulations-texas.html
“Unintended Pregnancy in the United States.” Guttmacher Institute, January 2019.
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states#
