Summary Of Women Of Color And The Reproductive Rights Movement By Jennifer Nelson

In “Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement”, author Jennifer Nelson takes the readers back to the Unites States in the mid to late nineteenth century, where the feminist movement began to focus on the reproductive rights of women. Feminists argued that abortion was the decision of the woman who was with child, and her alone. However, several politicians disagreed with the ideology of these women. The author meticulously analyzes the rise of reproductive rights, the feminist movement, and reveals to her readers the essential involvement of women of color in these former issues between the years 1960 and 1980. Nelson begins her book by introducing a feminist organization called the “Redstockings”, who believed that it was wrong

Lefkwowitz. Feminists in the Women’s Health Collective, a women’s rights organization, were inspired by the Redstockings to expand upon women’s reproductive rights. Feminist lawyers and female plaintiffs joined forces to challenge the New York State abortion law. Due to their persistent efforts, the state of New York legalized abortion “during the first 2.4 weeks of gestation” with Cook’s bill. However, the state was unwilling to alter this rule any further, as they believed it was not an issue for women to decide, but a medical decision to ensure both the safety of the woman and the fetus as

Specifically, white women often viewed sterilization as one more option for voluntary fertility regulation. She specifies that even white women in poverty did not experience reproductive abuses at the same rate as women of color. Politically active black women pushed for the being able to combine their opposition to sterilization abuse with solid support for safe abortion. Moreover, they were concerned with the amount of women of color dying each year due to illegal back-street abortions. Nelson states that the number of black women having abortions increased after the Supreme Court ruling. Black activists leapt to defend their rights to abortion when it came under the attack by religious