History of Women's Reproductive Health and Rights

New York University's The Margaret Sanger Paper's Project

Statement of Purpose:  The purpose of this blog to present this topic from a historical perspective in order to evaluate current trends.  I urge you to view this topic through the lens of girls’ and women’s wellness and suspend your current beliefs, if just a moment.

Institute of the Laws of England by Edward Coke

In recent months, the nation has become divided on issues regarding women’s rights and women’s reproductive health. Unfortunately, this is not a new story.  In fact, history has continued to repeat itself since 1644 when Sir Edward Coke's Institutes of the Laws of England formulated the Born Alive Rule, established common law by stating that crimes such as homicide and assault, apply only to a live birth, and abortion after “quickening” (first movement of the fetus) was a misdemeanor. (Reiman, 1999, p.22). Childbirth was considered a woman’s domain and men did not intrude with this process, until it was viewed as a legal issue in the event of a live birth or in the event a mother died as a result of a botched procedure. 

The Born Alive Rule was the standard in the United States until very strict anti-abortion laws were passed during the 1800’s. The fact that the Born Alive Rule had remained the standard for over 150 years makes one wonder what predicated such drastic changes. 

In the early 1800s, women were considered second-class citizens. Women were expected to be a mother and wife...nothing more. After marriage, women did not have the right to own their own property, keep their own wages, or sign a contract. Women were discouraged from pursuing a real education or professional career.

As women began petitioning for equal education and voting rights, men viewed this as a threat and produced wildly inaccurate views of women, backed by science in order to assert their power over women. This is also the same time period when Race Scientists emerged to produce wildly inaccurate

The Negro the Beast by C. Carroll

pseudo-scientific claims to “prove” Caucasians were superior to African Americans. In both cases, Science was used to support religious ideologies to discriminate against marginalized populations in order to maintain the superiority of the Caucasian patriarchy. 

Harvard Professor Dr. Edward Clarke stated, “A woman’s body could only handle a limited number of developmental tasks at one time. Girls who spent too much energy developing their minds during puberty would end up with undeveloped or diseased reproductive systems.”  He also scientifically concluded that “If young women studied too much, they would divert blood away from the uterus to the brain, rendering themselves irritable and infertile.” 

These statements reveal many things about the author's views and society's belief that all women should adhere to strict gender roles and not show displeasure in any way. It also reveals that a woman's ultimate value is found in their reproductive abilities and the ideology behind the laws governing women’s reproductive rights. Sadly, women were helpless to change these ideals because they were not represented in the political process. If women could not handle an education, then they certainly could not handle the responsibility of voting. Therefore, all women were denied the right to vote.  

       

         It is interesting to note the dramatic shift in American views during the mid to late nineteenth century when the newly formed American Medical Association, a patriarchal society, began campaigning to criminalize abortion. Their ultimate goal was to destroy the professions of midwives and homeopaths in order to dominate what was once considered the women’s domain. The Catholic Church, another patriarchal society, continued this trend by condemning the very act of abortion. The American government, yet another patriarch society, followed suit by criminalizing anti-contraceptive education, distribution or sale of contraceptives, and the use of contraceptives. Ultimately, in the 1880’s almost all states in the union had passed laws to criminalize abortions.  

The table illustrates, arrests and convictions were very low. "This data  should not underestimate and obscure the state's serious interest in enforcing the criminal abortion laws" (Reagan, 1997, p.117). This graph more accurately represents the increase of public interest and the sustained commitment to regulate reproductive rights of women. 

The 1900's  Alice Paul, suffragist and women’s rights activist, force fed for 2 months while serving a 7 month jail term for picketing the White House.

Margaret Sanger, activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse enlisted scientists to develop a “magic pill” which she coined “birth control.” She also established the first birth control clinic which evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

        

        

          It was not until 1920 that Caucasian women were fully enfranchised and gained their right to vote, and it was not until the 1960’s that African-American Women were enfranchised and gained their right to vote. Women’s suffrage fueled the escalating fervor regarding women’s reproductive rights.  A true tug-of-war between religion, patriarchal societies, and women’s reproductive rights led to unprecedented violence in the later parts of the 20^th century.  

         The many technological and scientific advancements of the period only added to the complexity of the debate. Margaret Sanger in 1916 coined the

Planned Parenthood

term birth control and commissioned scientists to create the pill.  She also laid the foundation for Planned Parenthood. Despite all of the resources that Planned Parenthood provides, Planned Parenthood has been synonymous with abortion.

It wasn’t until the Civil Rights Movement in 1965, when the Supreme Court decriminalized contraception because it violated a married couple’s right to privacy, almost 100 years after its establishment. Almost ten years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that women had the right to terminate pregnancies under the 14th amendment. Women finally felt they were making gains when the Hyde Amendment was passed only 2 years after Roe v. Wade, which started a waterfall of restrictive legislation.  

HYDE AMENDMENT

No funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law, shall be expended for any abortion.

        The Hyde Amendment (1976) effectively restricted access to health care options by penalizing low-income women. Since “Medicaid provides coverage

to 1 in 5 women of reproductive age (15-44), the Hyde Amendment forces a large percentage of low-income women to pay the biggest part of their income for safe, legal healthcare (Planned Parenthood, 2017). Soon after, states began passing legislation that required a 24-hour waiting period for abortions, required married women to inform their husbands before an abortion, and mandated parental consent for minors seeking an abortion. (Title 18, Pennsylvania General Assembly). Women began to see their newly minted reproductive rights slowly receding as violence in the mid 80’s and 90’s dominated headlines: bombings, shooting rampages, and an assassination.

        The 21st century has mirrored the trends of the 20^th century. States have passed 1,074 abortion restrictions since Roe v. Wade, more than a quarter of them since 2010. (Reagan, 1997). The current trend does not seem to show any sign of slowing or reversing course. In fact, current political trends reveal

similarities between the legislation of the late 1800’s- when the US government criminalized anti-contraceptive education, distribution or sale of contraceptives, and the use of contraceptives in order to assert dominance to maintain superiority. While the Trump administration is not criminalizing all of these items, it is evident by reinstating the Gag rule, defunding Planned Parenthood through the repeal of Title X, and the repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act that women’s access to education, access to contraception, and access to legal, safe abortions will drastically change the landscape of women’s reproductive rights not only in the United States but millions of women across the globe.

         The Gag Rule established by Ronald Reagan in 1984 has been supported by every Republican administration and opposed by every Democratic administration and has had a massive impact on global healthcare initiatives. Under Trump’s plan, broader restriction have been implemented by cutting $9 billion, used to fight malaria, H.I.V., Zika, Ebola and many other global health threats (Mahoney, 2017).  Each time the Gag Rule has been instated, the number of abortions has not decreased. In fact, the number of abortion fatalities increases dramatically. 

       

Title X of the Public Health Service Act was passed in 1970 by President Richard Nixon and provides funds to ensure access for family planning and related preventive health services for low-income or uninsured individuals,among others (Mahoney, 2017). More than 4 million individuals received services through nearly 4,000 health centers that are partially funded by Title X grants, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

     






















  The Guttmacher Institute, which monitors reproductive health policy, estimates that the unintended pregnancy rate would be 33 percent higher and the teen pregnancy rate would be 30 percent higher without contraceptive care provided by Title X centers. Moreover, the institute predicted the services provided by Title X centers have prevented "87,000 preterm or low-birth-weight births, 63,000 STIs and 2,000 cases of cervical cancer" (Mohoney, 2017).

      

        As we have discussed during the semester, trends related to girls’ and women’s wellness are cause for alarm: hypersexualization, consumerism which reinforces stereotypical gender roles, the increase of intimate partner violence, and sexual abuse make access to education and legal, safe health care even more critical. In 2007, Amnesty International declared "Reproductive rights a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health. These rights may include some or call of the following: the right to legal or safe abortion, the right to birth control, the right to access quality reproductive healthcare, and the right to education and access in order to make reproductive choices free from coercion, discrimination, and violence." In the past 8 years women globally have benefited from the resources provided by Planned Parenthood and Title X. In the past 90 days, these resources and the human right of women to make decisions about their reproductive health free of coercion, discrimination, or violence have been declined. We all know that history repeats itself and the tug-o-war over women's reproductive rights will continue for many years unless women gain more representation in government.  Women have secured the right to vote, but like second-class citizens, women have not gained the right to make decisions about their own reproductive health.

CNN.com

QUESTIONS:

If women’s rights and women’s reproductive rights have historically been associated with full enfranchisement, then what do current trends which limit education, limit access to contraception, limit access to health care, and criminalize abortion suggest about the trajectory of women’s reproductive rights and women’s status in our society?

Do you feel the original common law Born Alive Rule is relevant today? Will there be a point when so many restrictions are passed that Roe v. Wade is irrelevant?

Without religious or moral implications, would abortion and women reproductive rights be an issue?  If no, does this mean church and state are not separate?

Do you feel it is just for men to make decisions about women's reproductive health and rights

References

Mahoney, Gillian. (2017). “How Title X Change Could Affect Family Planning in US.” 
          ABCNews. Retrieved from: http://abcnews.go.com/

Health/title-change-affect-family-planning- us/story?id=46773631

Planned Parenthood. (2017). “The Title X: America’s Family PlanningProgram”. Retrieved 
         from: https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org /issues/health-care-equity/title-x

Reagan, Leslie. (1997). When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, Law in the United  
         States, 1867-1973. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Reiman, Jeffery. (1999). Abortion and thee Ways We Value Human Life. Boston: Rowman &
         Littlefield Publishers, Inc.