reproductive issues

Historically racism has had an impact on the gendered experiences of women of color in the health care system through forced steralizations and the eugenics movement. The eugenics movement took Darwin's ideas of natural selection and applied them to humans with the idea that only the "fit" should be encouraged to reproduce. Around the time when some white middle class women were first pushing for woman to choose when to be mothers and to control their reproductive lives some male politicians said that this would cause race suicide for white Americans. Policy makers encouraged white families who were middle class or wealthy to have many children. They also tried to limit the reproduction of those who were "unfit" such as criminals, those considered to have mental problems, prostitutes, the poor, and people of color. This often meant forced steralizations for women who fell into one of those categories. Puerto Rican woman have also been historically impacted by the belief that problems in Puerto Rico were caused by over population. This lead to forced steralizations, and coerecion to use birth control. Today, women of color, and poor white woman also face problems with steralization based on their gendered experiences with the health care system. The government will not cover abortions for low income women. In many cases the only birth control option for women who are relying on the government for health care is steralization. This means that although they aren't forced to get steralizations, it is their only option. I learned through some of our reading that most women who get abortions plan on having children in the future. Many women who don't currently want children would much rather use a temporary form of birth control, but the only option given to women relying on government assistence is permanant.

It is important for femminists to broaden discussions of reproductive choice beyond abortion. Abortion is often due to unwanted pregnancies (although there is sometimes danger to the mother due to complications, or problems with the baby). One thing that should be discussed is how to lower rates or unwanted pregnancy, or to change conditions that may make it challenging for some women who might other wise want children to be able to provide for their children and themselves better. Things like preventative methods of birth control need to be discussed, and education about about reproductive matters for all women is an important issue. Access to child care and health care for all women are importnat issues that need to be discussed. We learned that some women have to travel very far, or are unable to travel at all to clinics with reproductive services. Reproductive choice also includes overall reproductive health. Women need to have access to health care to make sure that they are able to be treated for things like infections or other problems. They also need to have access to health care for cancers that can affect their reproductive abilities. A woman can't choose to reproduce at all if she has cervical cancer that was detected too late and has to get a historectomy, or if she dies becasue it was never detected at all. It is also important to make sure that all women actually have options to choose from. We may have reproductive choice in the sense that we can choose to have children or not, but we need to be sure that all women actually have the chance to do other things. For example, we need to make sure that all women have access to quality education and equal chances of finding jobs. This issue can be over looked since many white middle class women already have these oppritunities, so some people assume that these options are open to all women when that is not the case. Another issue that wasn't mentioned much in the module was counceling. The module did mention that sometimes counceling is required before getting an abortion as what I understood to be as a deterent or waiting period. However I think that counceling is very importnat for people who either weren't expecting their pregnancy or who aren't sure they can handle motherhood but aren't sure they necessarily don't want to keep their child to have counceling. Many women know for sure that they don't or do want to have thier baby but that isn't always the case. It is a huge decision that will impact the rest of someone's life, which ever decision they make. Some women, especially teenagers and young women may not know or fully understand their options. There are many women who want to keep their baby but feel like they can't becasue they don't have enough economic resources, access to quality child care, or social support. Counceling is crucial because it can ensure that women know what all their options are before making a decision. It can also provide them with information about resources to help them with child care, jobs, money, and support. It is also good becasue this can be a very emotional time for women and that makes it very hard to make a decision. There is also the issue that many women may feel pressure from family or husbands/boyfriends to either have or not have an abortion when that isn't what they really want. We have already discussed how men dominate in our society, counceling can help a woman figure out what she wants and how to accomplish that. If a woman does choose to have an abortion I think counceling could help a lot because it can be a very difficult experience physically and emotionally. Many women who experience this may be too ashamed to tell their loved ones or lack a strong social support netowrk. They need someone to be there for them.