We Need to Go Beyond Pro-Choice
With Roe V. Wade hanging in the balance, White feminists must do more to ensure their feminism is intersectional and listen to Women of Color
Much like many other White women who consider themselves pro-choice, I also consider myself a feminist. I also do my best to be an intersectional feminist, but in regards to reproductive rights, access, and health, I learned three years ago that I was failing.
Sure, I was pro-choice. Everyone that wants an abortion should be able to get them. That simple, that easy. Except it isn’t that simple, because the “choice” of having an abortion, or raising a child, or having access to reproductive health care has never been equal for white women and Women of Color, and white feminists have either ignored or willfully silenced this fact for generations.
I was first introduced to reproductive justice three years ago in the first semester of my master's program. Having never heard of it before, I went in to do my research.
I spent over a year reading, listening to podcasts, and watching documentaries every day and night to learn more.
Reproductive justice has three main tenants: the right to choose not to have a child, the right to choose to have a child, and the right to raise children in a safe environment.
What many pro-choice women, men, and white feminists often fail to consider, is the stark difference in access as related to each of these three rights between white women (particularly middle-class white women) and Women of Color.
You may not know that white people have a history of and currently sterilizing Women of Color against their will. This can happen during “routine” health procedures, childbirth, or by taking advantage of language barriers. But, why sterilize women while simultaneously attempting to outlaw abortion?
While outlawing abortion is good for the white population, as it forces women to carry on the burden of keeping the white population high, it is also beneficial for white people in the sense that making abortion inaccessible and illegal forces Women of Color bear children, with the hope that the more children they have, the less likely they are to rise up the latter socially, economically, and politically.
Simultaneously, forcing sterilizations on women of color decreases the chance that their population will exceed the white population. Seems like two opposite goals right? Well, they both involve forcing people to do things against their will, dismantling agency, and working together to guarantee the oppression of People of Color while ensuring white people remain in power.
White feminists have historically and currently ignore either through willful ignorance or purposeful ignorance how attacks on reproductive health care and reproductive rights are rooted in racism.
Middle-class white women have also always had access to abortion through travel or underground doctors, while poor white women and Women of color are so often unable to travel to avoid restrictions and have been forced to participate in dangerous self-efforts to end a pregnancy.
As we continue this fight for women’s reproductive rights, White women need to take some time to self-examine and research how limiting reproductive rights has been utilized by White people to sustain the oppression of all People of Color. Without this acknowledgment by white women, the search for “equity” may never be possible. White women need to take a step back and listen to what Women of Color have been trying to tell us for generations, and rather than trying to be leaders, be the followers and allies, as we let those voices that have so often been marginalized lead the way.
