Select any vulnerable population, or social group that has received unequal treatment with regard to reproduction (e.g., indi

“What a brilliant collection of cutting edge chapters that skillfully describe the critical chal- lenges for those working on reproductive justice, evidence-based policy making, and the persistent inequities that face women in particular—whether because of gender, class or race. Faculty in schools of public health and women, gender and sexuality studies programs will fi nd this the best such collection to date. More comprehensive than anything of its kind I have ever seen.”

—Judy Norsigian, Executive Director, Our Bodies Ourselves

“In Reproduction and Society, editors Carole Joffe and Jennifer Reich have compiled an impressive ‘best of’ collection of readings on the social and political signifi cance of repro- duction. Contributors from diverse disciplinary and professional backgrounds have applied themselves to contraception, pregnancy, policy and more; the result is a volume that is as compelling as it is informative.”

—Jeanne Flavin, Sociology, Fordham University, Board President, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and author of

Our Bodies, Our Crimes: the Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America

“Feminist sociologists Carole Joffe and Jennifer Reich have created a timely and valuable resource that illuminates the personal and political implications of key reproductive experi- ences. As editors, they have drawn from outstanding scholarship in a range of disciplines to examine contraception, abortion, assisted reproduction, pregnancy and childbirth through diverse, interrelated sociological lenses: feminist analyses of governance and institutional control; intersectionality, reproductive justice and social movements. If we are ever to achieve reproductive justice in the U.S., we need this book for its informed and thoughtful consid- eration of the complexity of issues facing women and men whose reproductive options are shaped by culture, ideology and politics. This book is a must-read for the generation most affected by U.S. reproductive policies—future parents—and is destined to become a classic in the sociology of reproduction.”

—Christine H. Morton, author of Birth Ambassadors: Doulas and the Re-Emergence of Woman-Supported Birth in America,

founder of ReproNetwork.org, and research sociologist at Stanford University

Reproduction and Society: Interdisciplinary

Readings A collection of essays, framed with original introductions, Reproduction and Society: Interdisciplinary Readings helps students to think critically about reproduction as a social phenomenon. Divided into six rich and varied sections, this book offers students and instruc- tors a broad overview of the social meanings of reproduction and offers opportunities to explore signifi cant questions of how resources are allocated, individuals are regulated, and how very much is at stake as people and communities aim to determine their own family size and reproductive experiences. This is an ideal core text for courses on reproduction, family, gender and sexualities.

Carole Joffe is a Professor in the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANS- IRH) program at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also professor emerita of sociology at the University of California, Davis. In 2013, Professor Joffe received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Family Planning. She is the author of several books and numerous articles on various aspects of reproductive health and reproductive politics.

Jennifer Reich is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado, Denver. She is the author of Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System (Routledge, 2005), which won the American Sociological Association section on Race, Gender, and Class Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award in 2007 and was a fi nalist for the prestigious C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 2006. She has written more than 20 articles and book chapters on gender, reproductive politics, family policy, and welfare.

PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER

Edited by Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Black Feminist Thought Patricia Hill Collins Black Women and White Women in Natalie J. Sokoloff the Professions Community Activism and Feminist Politics Edited by Nancy Naples Complex Inequality Leslie McCall Disposable Women and Other Myths of Melissa W. Wright Global Capitalism Feminism and the Women's Movement Barbara Ryan Fixing Families Jennifer A. Reich For Richer, For Poorer Demie Kurz Gender Consciousness and Politics Sue Tolleson Rinehart Global Gender Research Christine E. Bose and Minejeong Kim Grassroots Warriors Nancy A. Naples Home-Grown Hate Edited by Abby L. Ferber Integrative Feminisms Angela Miles Laboring On Wendy Simonds, Barbara Katz Rothman and

Bari Meltzer Norman Maid in the U.S.A. Mary Romero Making Transnational Feminism Millie Thayer Mothering Edited by Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Grace

Chang and Linda Rennie Forcey Rape Work Patricia Yancey Martin Regulating Sex Edited by Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie

Schaffner Rock-a-by Baby Verta Taylor School-smart and Mother-wise Wendy Luttrell Stepping Out of Line Cheryl Hercus The Social Economy of Single Motherhood Margaret Nelson Understanding Sexual Violence Diana Scully When Sex Became Gender Shira Tarrant Gender and Justice Sally Kenney

Reproduction and Society:

Interdisciplinary Readings

Edited by Carole Joffe and Jennifer Reich

First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

The right of the editors to be identifi ed as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reproduction and society : interdisciplinary readings / edited by Carole Joffe and Jennifer Reich. pages cm.—(Perspectives on gender) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Family size—Social aspects. 2. Human reproduction—Social aspects. 3. Reproductive rights—Social aspects. 4. Birth control—Social aspects. I. Joffe, Carole E. II. Reich, Jennifer A. HQ760.R47 2015 304.6ƍ3—dc23 2014011791

ISBN: 978-0-415-73102-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-73103-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-75422-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon and Helvetica Neue by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Dedicated to those health care professionals and advocates who strive, often against great odds, to make possible high quality, respectful, and compassionate reproductive health care to women and men in the United States and globally.

CONTENTS

Series Foreword xv

Preface xvii

Acknowledgments xix

Introduction: Reproduction and the Public Interest in Private Acts 1 Carole Joffe and Jennifer Reich

Section I: Contraception and Sterilization 13

Introduction

1 The Folklore of Birth Control 19 Linda Gordon

Historian Linda Gordon provides a discussion of early methods of birth control and how individu- als across time and place have aimed to control their own reproduction.

2 The Pill—Genocide or Liberation? 31 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 was a source of empowerment for Black women.

3 The Fertility of Women of Mexican Origin: A Social Constructionist Approach 32 Elena Gutiérrez

Sociologist Elena Gutiérrez 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.

4 The Economic Impact of the Pill 43 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 being cost-saving to women specifi cally and tax payers generally.

x | C O N T E N T S

Section II: Abortion 45

Introduction

5 A selection from Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and After Roe v. Wade 51

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.

6 Practice Constraints and the Institutionalized Buck-Passing of Abortion Care 59 Lori Freedman

Sociologist Lori Freedman shows how anti-abortion stigma, as well as transformations in medical care, including declining autonomy for physicians, has hampered doctors’ ability to provide abor- tion services, even when they are ideologically committed to doing so.

7 Rethinking the Mantra that Abortion should be “Safe, Legal, and Rare” 67 Tracy A. Weitz

Sociologist Tracy A. Weitz examines rates of abortion in the U.S. and considers what making abor- tion “rare” would mean. In doing so, she highlights the stigma associated with this common proce- dure and challenges readers to new ways of thinking about reproductive healthcare generally and abortion specifi cally.

8 Race, Reproductive Politics and Reproductive Health Care in the Contemporary United States 75

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.

9 Not Ready to Fill His Father’s Shoes: A Masculinist Discourse of Abortion 78 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 abor- tion links to broader meanings of masculinity, fatherhood, and family.

10 Facing the Fetus 90 Helena Silverstein

Political scientist Helena Silverstein examines the experiences of girls who wish to terminate a preg- nancy 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.

xiC O N T E N T S |

Section III: Reproductive Technologies 99

Introduction

11 Selling Genes, Selling Gender 104 Rene Almeling

Sociologist Rene Almeling takes readers inside the industry that recruits sperm and egg donors and sells their genetic material, and shows the confl uence of cultural expectations of gender, meanings of altruism and motives of profi t in this realm.

12 India’s Reproductive Assembly Line 110 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, motiva- tions, and feelings about the work.

13 Debates over Lesbian Reproduction within Lesbian/Gay and Feminist Communities 115

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.

14 The Belly Mommy and the Fetus Sitter: The Reproductive Marketplace and Family Intimacies 121

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 137

Introduction

15 Reproduction in Bondage 141 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.

16 Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Human Rights Failure 153 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. dur- ing 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.

xii | C O N T E N T S

17 Choosing Your Health Care Provider and Birth Setting 159 Boston Women’s Health Collective

This excerpt from Our Bodies Ourselves, a global nonprofi t 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.

18 Contested Conceptions and Misconceptions 161 Rayna Rapp

With rich description, anthropologist Rayna Rapp examines how pregnant women and their fami- lies understand prenatal testing and diagnoses, and how they view questions of genetic risk and pregnancy outcomes differently than the professionals who offer testing.

19 Motherhood Lost: Cultural Dimensions of Miscarriage and Stillbirth in America 171

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.

20 The Risks to Reproductive Health and Fertility 175 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.

21 The Liability Threat in Obstetrics 184 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 United States.

Section V: Special Populations Targeted for Reproductive Control 199

Introduction

22 Invisible Immigrants: What Will Immigration Reform Mean for Migrant Women? 206

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.

23 Roe v. Wade and the new Jane Crow: Reproductive Rights in the Age of Mass Incarceration 209

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.

xiiiC O N T E N T S |

24 Prescriptions: Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, Prison Ob/Gyn 217 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 incarcer- ated women face with respect to reproductive health.

25 Disabled Women and Reproductive Rights 219 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, contra- ception, 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 of a range of undesirable outcomes, including coercive sterilization, unwanted abortion or loss of child custody.

26 Motherhood as Class Privilege in America 232 Rickie Solinger

Historian Rickie Solinger identifi es 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 239

Introduction

27 Reproductive Justice 244 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.

28 Thinking Beyond ICPD+10: Where Should Our Movement Be Going? 249 Sonia Corrêa, Adrienne Germain, and Rosalind P. Petchesky

This conversation among three long-time scholar/activists in the fi eld 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 Corrêa, Adrienne Germain and Rosalind Petchesky are still relevant and outline the work that remains to be done by reproductive activists, and the new coalitions that should be pursued.

29 The Globalization of the Culture Wars 260 Michelle Goldberg

Journalist Michelle Goldberg discusses the ways that U.S. politics on reproduction have infl uenced foreign policy and limited or eliminated the resources available to organizations and communities worldwide.

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30 Female Feticide and Infanticide: Implications for Reproductive Justice 264 Ramaswami Mahalingam and Madeline Wachman

This chapter by psychologists Ramaswami Mahalingam and Madeline Wachman examines struc- tural 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.

31 Excerpt from Remarks to the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session, delivered September 5, 1995, Beijing, China 270

Hillary Rodham Clinton

This excerpt from an address given by then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to the United Nations Conference on Women highlights the circumstances of women globally and the challenges to their health and well-being.

References 275 Contributor Biographies 299 Credits 301 Index 305

SERIES FOREWORD

Reproduction and Society, by Carole Joffe and Jennifer Reich

This interdisciplinary reader adds a new and much needed perspective to the long-running series of “Perspectives on Gender” books that it has been my privilege to edit. The intent of the series has always been to add high-quality scholarship to illuminate the workings of gen- der in society, especially in ways that recognize the intersectional impacts of class and race on and with gender. Moreover, the scope of the series is geographically broad, drawing attention to changes over time and variation between countries in how gender relations are organized. The books in this series have therefore also always been various in their specifi c focus, even though unifi ed by a relational view of gender as a matter of power that is exercised in diverse, interactive forms.

The series as a whole has deliberately engaged diversity as a necessary perspective on gen- der. This has been expressed in its range of topics from micro to macro analyses of gender transformations, the mix of quantitative and qualitative methods employed, and the strong emphasis on making sure that gender was seen as intersectional with race and class. The centrality of social change to the titles in this series has implied an emphasis on contested power relations, social movements, and historical transformations in work, family and poli- tics. These two themes of diversity and change have been admirably combined now in this single volume.

It has been my pleasure and privilege to help authors in the series frame the concerns in their manuscripts to make visible our collective commitment to intersectionality and social change while also staying true to their individual voices. If we succeeded, readers will be able to recognize the collective energy in the series as well as the distinctive contributions of each individual book. Both Carole Joffe and Jennifer Reich are well-recognized experts in the fi eld of reproduction—before, during and after conception, pregnancy, childbirth and in relation to the challenges of raising children in the shadow of the state.

I fi nd myself particularly enthusiastic about this book because it so nicely weaves these themes into a political understanding of reproduction as both a physically signifi cant and yet fully social constructed experience that is placed at the center of women’s lives. There is sim- ply no other book that tackles so comprehensively the problematic of reproduction. But this book is no mere gap-fi ller. It is a contribution in itself to theorizing the scope and meaning of reproduction as a societal relationship, one by no means less important than production, consumption, nationalism, or trade. Most importantly, the perspective Joffe and Reich offer differs from more narrowly life-course or psychological accounts of women’s involvement in reproduction. They place all aspects of reproduction into a frame that is social and political rather than individual or developmental, and they use intersectionality as a lens to make the

xvi | S E R I E S F O R E W O R D

parameters of reproductive injustice clear. These they identify as gendered, but not only as about gender as a binary societal relationship.

Rather than making “difference” from men the defi nition of either women or gender, Joffe and Reich look to the social organization of embodied people in hierarchical relations in which the work of societal reproduction fi gures centrally. Thus while this book is interdisci- plinary to the core, it is also fundamentally an account of the particular decisions, policies, practices and political struggles that shape the relations in which reproduction is situated in this particular historical moment. Moreover, thinking about reproduction as a social as well as biological act has been fruitful for understanding the ways that women and men are related to the state—via motherhood or military service—and why the state cares differently about the reproductive work being done depending on the race, class and sexualities of those doing it. Refraining from political polemics, the book nonetheless embraces an understand- ing of reproduction as a political act in the sense of making a new generation of the body politic.

If, when, and how women do or do not become pregnant, bear and raise children, and raise their own voices to claim authority over the process has already been the subject of a vast array of feminist scholarship as well as philosophical and practical political debates. Indeed, the thorniest issue for a book like this is to take a clear position on what matters most and why, and here the collection succeeds brilliantly. The particular contribution of this volume is to choose skillfully among the most insightful work and integrate the diversity of the perspectives offered there into a coherent account of the gendering of reproduction. The selections are then placed in their historical, political and scholarly context by section intro- ductions that capture and condense the contributions of so many other outstanding scholars that a single volume necessarily omits.

The range of work is impressive not only for the attention it pays to including the diversity of women’s experiences with the ways reproduction is organized but also for its exceptional understanding of reproductive matters at all levels from the individual to the interactional to the institutional and ideological. There is clear commitment to a feminist perspective: the importance of all women’s lives; women’s agency in the face of structural obstacles; recogni- tion of various degrees of risk, choice, and control encountered in relations of reproduction that differ by gender in relation to race, nationality, and class. Rather than a political pro- gram with obligatory answers, the feminist perspective of this book offers a series of tough questions about what real reproductive justice would look like.

In sum, while this book is admirably suited for classroom use, it is also an integrative contribution to gender scholarship, framing the issues of reproduction broadly but distinc- tively as being matters of inclusive and intersectional justice. Acknowledging controversies, even among feminists, but also putting the variety of perspectives into a well-thought-out framework, the authors add a comprehensive take on matters of reproduction to the other concerns about gender and justice that this series has stressed.

Myra Marx Ferree Series Editor

Surrogacy, egg and sperm donation, controversies of birth control access, the right to choose one’s childbirth experience, or stories of reproductive technologies gone awry are now com- mon discussions in news, politics, and even popular culture. Questions of the social and political—as opposed to biological—dimensions of human reproduction surround us. Schol- arly studies in this arena have exploded over the last forty years or so, a development that was set in motion with the re-emergence of a woman’s movement in the United States and elsewhere, and the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in 1973. Since then, a variety of forces, ranging from advances in reproductive technology, to the growing inequality in U.S. society (and how this affects people’s reproductive possibilities) have only increased this attention to reproduction. Courses in a variety of disciplines focusing on this topic have become increasingly common in universities.

This sustained attention among scholars has led to many excellent book-length examina- tions of particular aspects of reproduction (such as pregnancy loss, abortion, contraception, or surrogacy). Such treatments, however, do not lend themselves to adequately educating the student who needs a broader overview of the social meanings of reproduction that covers a range of sites and forms of reproductive control within its cultural and political contexts. This book fi lls this gap. We designed this volume to support these discussions, help students to think critically about reproduction as a social phenomenon, and provide a resource for those teaching about these issues. Reproduction and Society contains original essays that frame each section. These short introductions by the editors offer descriptive information about the scale and scope of the topic, highlight particularly important themes, and intro- duce the readings. These introductory essays are followed by a selection of four to seven reprints from the best work in this fi eld. We draw on the work of senior scholars, who have produced classics in the study of reproduction, as well as those written by younger scholars who are pushing the fi eld forward. The authors represented in this volume are mainly drawn from the social sciences, but we also include the …