{"id":2175,"date":"2006-03-20T00:45:15","date_gmt":"2006-03-20T07:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/03\/20\/reproductive-rights-viewed-from-the-hilltop\/"},"modified":"2006-03-20T00:45:15","modified_gmt":"2006-03-20T07:45:15","slug":"reproductive-rights-viewed-from-the-hilltop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2175","title":{"rendered":"Reproductive Rights Viewed From The Hilltop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pro-choice movement can be a little insular; we are in a valley whose boundaries are defined by Roe v Wade<\/em> on the one side, and the ever-shrinking practical access to abortion on the other. Cherry at Tortillas Duras has written a terrific post that attempts to look at reproductive rights from the hilltop, where a broader view is possible. What reproductive rights issues are those of us in the valley missing?<\/p>\n

Here’s a sample of Cherry’s post. I don’t agree with everything Cherry says (for instance, would ending transnational adoption actually help “individuals who are not able to parent their children due to conditions created through imperialism,” and how do the needs of those individuals balance against the needs of people who are discriminated against by domestic adoption agencies?), but all of it is interesting; I’d really recommend reading the whole thing<\/a>.\n\n

As part of the process of undergoing a legal change of sex, many states mandate that people undergo surgical procedures through which they are sterilized as a precondition to a legal change of sex Oftentimes people aren’t notified of any options for banking eggs and sperm for future use. This is another example of coercive sterilization and a way in which reproductive choice is unfairly limited to a group of individuals.<\/p>\n

Yet what’s left out of this dialogue is the experience of trans people who choose not to, or don’t have the economic resources to undergo gender reassignment therapies. The positioning of this as a central issue of reproductive justice does not account for the many issues of day to day survival facing trans people with less resources, and the ways in which having less resources, especially when coupled with transphobia, affect overall health and well being. Some of the challenges facing trans people with less resources that affect health might be things like access to basic, fundamental needs such as food and shelter, as well as employment and housing discrimination, violence, and barriers to accessing healthcare. Because reproductive justice is really about survival, all of these matters deserve our attention, advocacy, and allyship as a matter of justice.<\/p>\n

Many of these issues and systems around reproduction and parenting for queer and gender variant people further enforce who gets to be a parent both within and outside of the queer community by privileging one type of family over another. This is the case with transracial and transcultural adoption. Transracial adoption determines what sort of people have the ability and resources to parent without acknowledging the imperialist, racist and classist dynamics of white, first world people adopting children of color from third world countries. We need to consider not just the sovereignty of nations when thinking about working against imperialism, but of individuals who are not able to parent their children due to conditions created through imperialism, as well as the effects of globalization and the many violations of human rights that occur as a result of these things.<\/p>\n

Similarly, when we think of fostering children involved with the child welfare system, we often don’t think of the conditions which compromise survival for the split families. We don’t often consider the ways in which certain families and communities are targeted and policed more than others, such as single mothers, low-income families, differently abled parents, families of color, and queer, trans and gender non-conforming parents of color or with lower incomes. We need to recognize this as an extension of the targeting, criminalization, and state intrusion these individuals and communities already unduly receive. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 stipulates that a parent loses parental rights to a child who has been in foster care for 15 of the previous 22 months. This has a specific impact on incarcerated women.<\/p>\n

78% of incarcerated women have children, and two-thirds of incarcerated women are women of color. Due to the remote locations of many women’s prisons fewer than half of these women are able to see their children and families while incarcerated. Incarcerated women are at a high risk of losing their children as many of the children are placed in foster care for the duration of their incarceration. Further compromising survival for some people who have been incarcerated is legislation specifying that anyone who has been convicted of a drug-related felony is barred from receiving cash or food stamps and living in public housing.<\/p>\n

The implications of all of these facts are many: that the legislation around retaining parental rights disproportionately affects women of color, that when facing incarceration women of color also face being dislocated from their communities and isolated from their resources and support networks, making it more difficult to ensure survival. And finally, that the legislation around drug felony convictions and access to benefits also compromises survival and one’s ability to provide for their families.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More.<\/a>\n<\/pracut>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pro-choice movement can be a little insular; we are in a valley whose boundaries are defined by Roe v Wade on the one side, and the ever-shrinking practical access to abortion on the other. Cherry at Tortillas Duras has … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,93,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights","category-race-racism-and-related-issues","category-transsexual-and-transgender-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}