Arizona enacts ban on abortions based on gender, race | Reuters.
I came across this article in a news feed today and had to post about it.
A week ago, my comment on the news feed would have been focused on how the Christian right is trying to further reduce women’s reproductive choice with inane laws that are a lot more applicable in China than the United States.
Then I read Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide by Andrea Smith.
So instead, this was my comment:
This country has a history of encouraging racial minorities to abort their pregnancies and then get sterilized, and a history of sterilizing women of color without their consent.
If this law were enforceable against doctors who really are performing abortions with a racist and anti-populationist or colonialist agenda, and not a right-wing scare tactic, I would support it.
However, this law is targeting “parents [who want to] select their offspring on the basis of gender or race” by going after their doctors (Reuters). This law is not in the business of protecting women of color from being pressured into having abortions based on the race of their children (Posted by me on slatest.slate.com).
What I learned from Andrea Smith is that the United States does have a history of abortion based on the race of the fetus. I also learned that the “pro-choice” movement leaves a lot of women of color out because it assumes that they have the opportunity to choose a safe, legal abortion if it is available in this country.
I think this new law as written will not help anyone, and may hurt the struggle to keep abortion legal in the United States. However, a national law that criminalizes the practice of encouraging women of color to get abortions based on the race of the fetus should be drafted and passed, so that those perpetrators, including state agencies, can be held accountable.
Sex, Culture, Politics 