Reproductive Justice In Dorothy Roberts's Killing The Black Body

Unequal access to resources has been a fight made by many groups across generations, genders and ethnic backgrounds. Regardless of class or social background people have always found a way to fight together for equality and equity, despite the obstacles and challenges the social structure has created. Two particular issues that have been the focus for the Chicanx community are the issues of reproductive justice and community housing. Reproductive justice has particularly affected the Chicanx community by the various social upbringings and traditions Chicanas are constantly reminded of and their limitations given their family background and cultural traditions. Comparatively, housing has become a larger issue affecting the daily lives of the

The book Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts examines laws passed by the United States that emphasized population control among black women as well as other lower income women. Though, the book centralizes on Black women, the laws still largely applied to woman of all backgrounds, but particularly focused on women of lower income status, including Chicanx women. Chapter 3 in Killing the Black Body called “From Norplant to the Contraceptive Vaccine: The New Frontier of Population Control,” focuses on the forms in which the U.S. government tried implementing population control programs to these set of women. One of the tactics described was enacting incentives to women who were dependent on social welfare, these women were often poor and had little choice over their options and were subjugated to government assistance. This was the beginning of government marketization of particularly the birth control Norplant which was released to the market in 1990 and was instantaneously absorbed by policy makers as a form of population abuse(Roberts, pp. 122). However, policy makers turned the blind eye at the risk hazards Norplant dealt with. Dorothy Roberts recalls continuous case studies that found Norplant to be highly dangerous, especially during the removal process.

hospitals during the 1960s and 1970s when many women, primarily Latina women were forced into sterilization in attempts of a population control mechanism. The film describes the negative affects these women faced from guilt and the rejection of their families and husbands. Although ten women who were affected from this forced sterilization filed a lawsuit to the supreme court, they lost the case due to a cultural difference that was unforeseen by doctors. Even though the ruling was clearly based off racial privilege, the awareness of the unspoken political agenda by systemic racism and was able to shed light into furthering women autonomy during medical visits. In the same way, the article mentioned earlier by Dorothy Roberts serves as a reinforcement of systematic discrimination done through larger institutions to retain ethnic oppression by regulating population