Reproduction and Society: Interdisciplinary Readings/
- New York: Routledge, 2014.
SECTION I: Contraception
Introduction
The Folklore of Birth Control Linda Gordon
Historian Linda Gordon provides a discussion of early methods of birth control and how individuals across time and place have aimed to control their own reproduction
The Pill: Genocide or Liberation? Toni Cade Bambera
This selection, drawn from an essay the late author and activist Cade Bambera wrote in the late 1960s, addresses arguments from that time period as to whether contraception represented a form of genocide in the African American community, as was alleged by Black militant groups, or a source of empowerment for Black women.
The Fertility of Women of Mexican Origin: A Social Constructionist Approach Elena Gutierrez
Sociologist Elena Gutierrez examines stereotypes about Latina women’s reproduction and the ways these stereotypes that Latina women "breed like rabbits" fueled efforts to surgically sterilize them, often without their knowledge or consent.
The Economic Impact of the Pill Annie Lowrey
Lowrey, an economic journalist at the New York Times, reviews research that shows how the birth control pill has been instrumental in facilitating women’s entrance into the professions, as well as cost-saving to women specifically and tax payers generally.
SECTION II: Abortion
Introduction
A selection from Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and After Roe v. Wade Carole Joffe
These excerpts from sociologist Carole Joffe’s book, offer a brief review of the history of abortion in the U.S., and American medicine’s role in criminalizing abortion in the 19th century, and then an account of doctors’ encounters with the consequences of illegal abortion—which led to physician advocacy for legalization.
Practice Constraints and the Institutionalized Buck-Passing of Abortion Care Lori Freedman
Sociologist Lori Freedman shows how as anti-abortion stigma, as well as transformations in medical care, including declining autonomy for physicians, has hampered doctors’ ability to provide abortion services, even when they are ideologically committed to doing so.
Rethinking the Mantra that Abortion should be "Safe, Legal and Rare" Tracy A. Weitz
Sociologist Tracy A. Weitz examines rates of abortion in the U.S. and considers what making abortion "rare" would mean. In doing so, she highlights the stigma associated with this common procedure and challenges readers to new ways of thinking about reproductive healthcare generally and abortion specifically.
Race, reproductive politics and reproductive health care in the contemporary United States Willie Parker and Carole Joffe
In this excerpt from an editorial written with sociologist Carole Joffe, Willie Parker, an African American obstetrician gynecologist, explains why he feels compelled to offer abortions, along with other necessary reproductive health services, to women in his community and repudiates the efforts of some to use the historic legacy of racism as an excuse to undermine access to this service.
Not Ready to Fill His Father’s Shoes: A Masculinist Discourse of Abortion Jennifer Reich
Sociologist Jennifer Reich draws on interviews with men who were responsible for a pregnancy that was terminated. She examines their narratives of abortion and shows how their experience of abortion links to broader meanings of masculinity, fatherhood, and family.
Facing the Fetus Helena Silverstein
Political Scientist Helena Silverstein examines the experiences of girls who wish to terminate a pregnancy without their parents knowing, and who go before a judge and request a "judicial by-pass". In this selection from her larger book, Silverstein takes us inside the court and shows the challenges girls often face and the questionable legal strategies sometimes employed.
SECTION III: Reproductive Technologies
Introduction
Selling Genes, Selling Gender Rene Almeling
Sociologist Rene Almeling takes readers inside the industry that recruits sperm and egg donors and sells their genetic material and shows the confluence of cultural expectations of gender, meanings of altruism and motives of profit in this realm.
India’s Reproductive Assembly Line Sharmila Rudrappa
Sociologist Sharmila Rudrappa provides a complex exploration of the lives of women in India who work as gestational surrogates for foreign couples, including these surrogates’ experiences, motivations, and feelings about the work.
Debates over Lesbian Reproduction within Lesbian/Gay and Feminist Communities Laura Mamo
Sociologist Laura Mamo situates gay and lesbian reproduction and use of assisted reproduction within the larger landscape of the policies and practices that guide these technologies. In doing so, she examines larger questions of who uses such technologies, for whom these technologies are intended, and how assisted reproduction interacts with broader meanings of inequality?
The Belly Mommy and the Fetus Sitter: The Reproductive Marketplace and Family Intimacies Joshua Gamson
Sociologist Joshua Gamson offers an engaging and intimate discussion of his relationships with the surrogates who gave birth to his daughters—one who was a friend and another who was paid through an agency—which in turn illuminates the complex meanings of family and relationships that result from these contractual and commercial relationships.
SECTION IV: Pregnancy and Birth
Introduction
Reproduction in Bondage Dorothy Roberts
Legal scholar Dorothy Roberts describes the experiences of African American women who were enslaved and the ways their gender and reproductive capacities furthered their exploitation.
Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Human Rights Failure Francine Coeytaux, Debra Bingham, and Nan Strauss
Looking at data from the United Nations that show high rates of death for women in the U.S. during pregnancy and childbirth, these public health researchers argue that since many of these deaths are preventable, these losses should be seen as human rights failures that deserve greater attention.
Choosing Your Health Care Provider and Birth Setting Boston Women’s Health Collective
This excerpt from Our Bodies Ourselves, a global nonprofit, public interest organization, suggests questions women and their partners should raise with health care providers as these prospective parents craft their plans for their pregnancies and births.
Contested Conceptions and Misconceptions Rayna Rapp
With rich description, anthropologist Rayna Rapp examines how pregnant women and their families understand prenatal testing and diagnoses, and how they view questions of genetic risk and pregnancy outcomes differently than the professionals who offer testing.
Motherhood Lost: Cultural Dimensions of Miscarriage and Stillbirth in America Linda L. Layne
Anthropologist Linda Layne analyzes the cultural meanings of pregnancy loss, a topic that is often overlooked in discussions of reproduction and pregnancy experience.
The Risks to Reproductive Health and Fertility Jackie Schwartz and Tracey Woodruff
This report, by two environmental scientists, summarizes research that demonstrates the health outcomes of environmental exposure to toxins and how these detrimentally affect reproduction, with some suggestions for developing solutions to protect health.
The Liability Threat in Obstetrics Theresa Morris
Sociologist Theresa Morris draws on qualitative data to explore how structural forces, including fear of malpractice claims, contribute to high rates of caesarean deliveries in the U.S.
SECTION V: Groups Targeted for Specific Reproductive Policies
Introduction
Invisible Immigrants: What Will Immigration Reform Mean for Migrant Women? Michelle Chen
Journalist Michelle Chen describes the work conditions for migrant women who lack access to healthcare and face grueling work, and how these conditions negatively affects their pregnancies, and put them at high risk of sexual assault.
Roe v. Wade and the new Jane Crow: Reproductive Rights in the Age of Mass Incarceration Lynn M. Paltrow
Using cases in which efforts to establish separate legal "personhood" for fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses have been used as the basis for the arrests and detentions of and forced interventions on pregnant women, including those who seek to go to term, attorney Lynn Paltrow argues that attacks on Roe v. Wade threaten the legal rights of all pregnant women, not only those who wish to end their pregnancies.
Prescriptions: Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, Prison Ob/Gyn Naomi Stotland
Physician Naomi Stotland interviews Dr. Carolyn Sufrin about her work as an obstetrician and gynecologist to women who are incarcerated, and sheds light on the particular challenges incarcerated women face with respect to reproductive health.
Disabled Women and Reproductive Rights Virginia Kallianes and Phyllis Rubenfeld
Disability rights scholars Virginia Kallianes and Phyllis Rubenfeld consider how disabled women are constrained by assumptions that they are asexual, by lack of reproductive health care, contraception, and sexuality information, and how these women face social disapproval of their desire to be mothers. The authors argue that disabled women are at risk for a range of undesirable outcomes, including coercive sterilization, unwanted abortion or loss of child custody.
Motherhood as Class Privilege in America Rickie Solinger
Historian Rickie Solinger identifies how women’s reproductive choices are viewed differently depending on their class level. While non-poor women’s reproduction is encouraged, poor women face scrutiny, social and economic sanctions, and disapproval of their childbearing.
SECTION VI: The Way Forward: Moving Toward Reproductive Justice
Introduction
Reproductive Justice Zakiya Luna and Kristin Luker
Sociologists Zakiya Luna and Kristin Luker provide an overview of the concept of "reproductive justice" and the ways this relatively new analytical approach critiques the longstanding mantra in the reproductive rights world of "choice." Reproductive justice, they argue, supports
all people’s reproductive goals, including the right to terminate pregnancies, continue pregnancies, and parent the children they have.
Thinking Beyond ICPD+10: Where Should Our Movement Be Going? Sonia Corrêa, Adrienne Germain, Rosalind P. Petchesky
This conversation among three long time scholar/activists in the field of reproduction took place ten years after the historic United Nations Conferences on Women and Population in Cairo and Beijing in 1994 and 1995. Although more than a decade ago, the issues raised by Sonia Correa, Rosalind Petchesky and Adrienne Germain are still relevant and outline the work that remains to be done by reproductive activists, and the new coalitions that should be pursued.
The Globalization of the Culture Wars Michelle Goldberg
Journalist Michelle Goldberg discusses the ways that U.S. politics on reproduction have influenced foreign policy and limited or eliminated the resources available to organizations and communities worldwide.
Female Feticide and Infanticide: Implications for Reproductive Justice Ramaswami Mahalingam and Madeline Wachman
This chapter by psychologists Mahalingam and Wachman examines structural and cultural factors that shape attitudes toward female infants and how these views lead to complex consequences that include extreme neglect of girls in the form of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide.