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Angela Davis Translation

Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights

Introduction:

The history of birth control and forced sterilization, outlined in Angela Davis’ essay, “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights,” illuminates the societal bias against Black, immigrant, and Native motherhood and numerous arms of its legal enforcement. Ultimately, the state imposed involuntary sterilization on women widely thought to be “unfit” for motherhood and whose children the white majority deemed unwanted members of society. We hope that this translation and its associated timeline will shed light on this history and its critical relevance to present-day reproductive justice discourse.

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Translation:

Angela Davis calls for an end to sterilization abuse by outlining the history of birth control in the United States, emphasizing the birth control movement’s ties to eugenics, population control, and the forced sterilization of non-white, poor women. In the 1970s, advocates for women’s liberation failed to review their movement’s historical ties to eugenics. Consequently, 1970s feminists attributed the absence of women of color in their movement to a preoccupation with resisting racism coupled with ignorance of the centrality of sexism to their lives. However, Davis asserts that the lack of involvement by women of color resulted, instead, from the racist history of the birth control movement itself.

 

The agenda of the early birth control movement in the 19th century aligned with the interests of wealthy white women who sought greater professional freedom and political equality through “voluntary motherhood.” Politicians of the time framed the restriction of reproduction and family size as a “right” for the wealthy and a “duty” for the poor. By the early 20th century, 26 states legally enforced the involuntary sterilization of “unfit,” poor, working-class mothers whose large families were seen as a burden to society. Instead of protecting all womens’ reproductive freedom, the birth control movement emerged as a systematic form of eugenic population control. 

 

Abortion rights activists in the 1970s overlooked this history until a scandal involving  the sterilization abuse of two young Black girls brought this issue to light. Furthermore, a national fertility study conducted in 1970 revealed that 20% of all married Black women had been permanently sterilized. The results of this study, among others, made clear the federal government’s complicity in racist population control programs. When Davis wrote this text in 1990, sterilizations were still federally-funded and free on demand. Taking this history into account, non-white, poor women’s assessment of birth control as an instrument of genocide cannot be considered a paranoid exaggeration. Instead, it poses a question: According to the State, who gets to be a legitimate mother?

Davis Translation: About
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