In the United States of America, Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than any other women’s demographics despite their socio-economic status. These statistics prove yet again how Black women’s bodies are objectified, ignored, and taken for ownership in the USA. The recent Heart Beat Bills signed in both Georgia and Alabama reflect the policing of Black women’s bodies yet again.
From slavery until the modern day, Black women and men have had ownership of their bodies and rights to those bodies stripped away from them. During slavery, African men and women were often used for medical experiments as well as to fulfill the sexual and economic pleasures of the White slave owners. Then leading through the Reconstruction Era through Civil Rights, there are several medical experiments performed on Black bodies with or without their consent. Institutions and laws created that purposefully and strategically attack Black bodies in hopes of decrease the African American population sizes or from another perspective of helping Black women take control of their bodies and socio-economic.
Finally, looking at today, several studies and firsthand experiences have shown the physical pain of Black women and girls ignored by medical professionals primarily in terms of childbirth.
As White women overwhelmingly vote against their interest and some Black men join in the policing of Black women’s bodies and decisions they make with those bodies, we see that the Heartbeat Bill has the intent not necessarily to target all women’s rights but more specifically, Black women’s rights to dictate their lives and bodies.
I will do a timeline to my conclusion on the Bill and its impact on Black women and will start with slavery.
Over 14 million Africans taken across the Atlantic, but only less than 400,000 made it to what is the United States today. Once the Atlantic Slave Trade ended in 1808, slave labor was relegated to the enslaved Africans already in the Americas, and their offspring. Despite the ending of slave trade, the enslaved population grew twenty-fold. Some would have children from consensual relationships many were products of rape by White slaveholders.
The option to abort was not available for many, and often some would take matters into their own hands either by terminating the pregnancy themselves with remedies bought from Africa or even committing suicide in some cases. This practice became a form of resistance, known as gynecological resistance. The loss of the child, though intentional, was seen as infertility to the White masters and would often prevent further rape or sexual abuse. The enslaved Africans bodies controlled by the masters and were seldom allowed to abort the child with medical assistance.
The treatment and use of African women as sexual objects and vessels for producing more slaves helped create the idea that Black women (and all Black people for that matter) were immune to pain and hypersexual beings, or Jezebels and Mandingos. The term, Jezebel, came from this concept and perception of Black women, which continues to this day. Despite enslaved African women’s attempts at taking control of their bodies, the idea that Black women have a high tolerance for pain would cause their use for medical experimentation for gynecological advancements.
James Marion Sims is renown as “The Father of Modern Gynecology” and is credited for the creation of medical tools like the vaginal spectrum and procedures like the repairing of vesicovaginal fistula, which was a product of labor wounds that made the enslaved women less sound for work and childbearing. Sims would perform much of his work on enslaved Black women without anesthesia and believed that African people were much more tolerant of pain than Europeans. Sims moved to Montgomery, Alabama (is that not IRONIC) to practice with little formal education in medicine and having already killed thirty patients in his previous practices.
He used African women to improve his techniques. Lucy, Anarcha, and Betsey are three of his many Black patients, whose names are known. Anarcha’s would be the first successful procedure after many failed attempts. After the success of Anarcha’s procedure, Sims began operating on White women with the use of anesthesia of course.
Sims believed that African women were eager to get his assistance and consensually done though there is no actual record of such. The reoccurring theme of Black bodies being used for medical experimentation is the history of the United States.
Following the end of slavery in North America, African Americans still struggled to have access to the same rights as their White counterparts. The most common areas this could be seen as politically and medically. The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sager, was believed to be racist and like many others at the time believe that Freed Black men and women were a detriment to the American Society. Sager’s intention in creating Planned Parenthood were based on eugenics. The claim was that contraception and abortions should be readily available and this would prevent over pollution of Black people.
Other claims have been made that Sager’s motives were pro-Black and especially pro-Black women to gain control where there did not see to be any. As stated earlier, Enslaved African women did not have control on whether or not they could terminate their pregnancies but did still take matters into their own hands. Evidence shows that Sager worked with W.E.B. DuBois to help give Black Families and Black women the ability to take control of their bodies. Black women were alarmingly targeted and raped by White men, especially in the Southern state. Women like Recy Taylor, who was attacked by a group of six White men, raped and left for dead.
The idea that Planned Parenthood was created to lessen the African American population is and was perpetuated by White Supremacy’s influence on Black masculinity and the psyche, but I will discuss that later. If Sager’s intentions were indeed to help women and more specifically Black women have access to reproductive choices, then this would be much different from the patterns of treatment that Black people have faced due to American medical research.
The medical abuse has not only been towards Black women; The Tuskegee Experiments were conducted from 1932-72 by the United State Public Health Services in Alabama (I see a theme here). The experiment conducted on 600 Black men as a way to see the effects of untreated syphilis on Black bodies as opposing to the White ones. The research was deemed extremely unethical but continued on to infect some of the spouses and even children of the participants. Coming from low-income rural areas of Alabama, many of the men agree because they told they would receive free medical care. While this was never the case and many of them died painfully. These experiments were not the only case of medical exploitation faced by Black people in the name of modern medicine.
Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951) diagnosed with cervical cancer upon discovering a tumor in her cervix following the birth of her fifth child in 1951. Samples of the tumor and her uterus taken for examination and research without her consent. Researchers discovered that her cancer cells, known as HeLa Cell, were surviving and multiplying and with this, they were able to develop treatments for and research many illnesses and diseases. Lacks died soon after being diagnosed, and her family knew nothing of the use of her cells by Johns Hopkins until almost twenty years later. Both instances are just two examples of Black bodies but more specifically, Black women’s bodies being policed and objectified for the benefits of eugenics and White medicine. The medical abuse of Black people throughout history has created a mistrust that also exists in politics. With the Heartbeat Bill being passed in both Georgia by Brian Kemp, a White one percenter man, and in Alabama by Kay Ivey, a White one percenter woman, studying and being vocal about the impact of this on the Black community and women is essential.
60% of Black girls experience a sexual assault by the time they turn 18 years old, and if that assault ends up on pregnancy, she is three times more likely to die in childbirth than her White peers despite her socio-economic status. You would think I was giving the statistics of a developing country, but no these are the rates in fully developed USA. The USA federal and MOSTLY state policies have been notorious not showing up for African Americans and states in the Southern USA are some of the worse. With Alabama 50th in education standards and Georgia not following too far behind, there is no chance that they are providing sexual education aside from abstinence teachings (entrenched in Puritanical ideologies).
The stigmatization of Black women/girls and sex through religion, society, and medicine limited their abilities and access to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Low levels of education and high religious devotion create a gap in communication about sex between the Older Black generation and Younger generations. Especially following the emergence of the AIDS/HIV epidemic, sex outside marriage comes with stigmatizations of higher levels of maturity for Black women and girls. Sexual liberation is something that is only deemed acceptable for White people and in some cases Black men. While in White homes, girls and women are able to live sexually liberal lives with little consequence to their image or reputation. The demonization of Black women and girls is not limited to White people or Black elders but some Black men.
Misogynoir is a term used for Black misogyny used in all areas but mostly to sexually and socially repress Black women. Many of the sentiments of Misogynoir mimic those of White supremacy in its constant attempts to regulate our bodies. Ideas against Black women having active, and healthy sex lives or choice to abort pregnancies are riddle with semantics that this behavior is and will be the destruction of the Black community. Misogynoir and White supremacy hold on to their belief in ownership of Black women’s bodies even if it is to the Black women’s detriment.
I will write it again in case you missed it the first time, BLACK WOMEN despite socio-economic status are three times more likely to die in childbirth. This statistic is not due to lack of equipment, medical professionals or healthcare but simply because Black women are believed to be more tolerable of pain. Medical professionals at even the top hospitals view Black women as animalistic and ignore our pain. Look at Serene Williams or Kim Porter, both in the highest level of socioeconomic status, and one almost died in childbirth while the other pneumonia symptoms ignored until it was too late.
In places like Alabama and Georgia, where these rates can be alarmingly higher (50% more than the nation’s average in Georgia, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the nation), there is more blatant racism, I am concerned at the impact this will have on mortality rates for Black women. Will more support be provided? Will there be better access to sex education and provide medical professionals with empathy and mental training. The importance also needs to be placed on getting, running and electing more BLACK healthcare professionals and politicians in office.
The Heartbeat bill is yet another direct attack on our bodies as Black women and while this will impact White women as well. There is difficulty in sympathizing with a demography that continuously votes (over 50%) against their needs out of ignorance or spite then question the lack of solidarity and mistrust of intersectional feminism. Despite these effects to control Black women’s bodies there through policies, we are thriving and will continue to fight against the laws and politicians that enact them and the White people that support them.
About Saskia Dure
My name is Saskia Dure and I am currently living in Southern Spain. I am working as a language assistant along with starting my own cannabis travel company open to all but mostly focused in POCs and those marginalized/criminalized by the illegalization of cannabis. I have my Master of International Relations as well, so I am familiar with researching the changing policies and have traveled to almost twenty different countries across four continents. If you would like to support or follow my journey here are the ways:
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