ePub Raising Freedom's Child: Black Children and Visions of the Future After Slavery (American History and Culture Series) by Mary Niall Mitchell in History

Description

A sweeping chronicle of women's battles for reproductive freedom throughout American history; Pregnancy and Power explores the many forces—social; racial; economic; and political—that have shaped women’s reproductive lives in the United States.Leading historian Rickie Solinger argues that a woman’s control over her body involves much more than the right to choose an abortion. Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised breeding schemes; when the U.S. government took Indian children from their families in the nineteenth century; and when doctors pressed Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Tracing the diverse plot lines of women’s reproductive lives throughout American history; Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom; putting race and class at the center of the effort to control sex and pregnancy in America over time. Solinger asks which women have how many children under what circumstances; and shows how reproductive experiences have been encouraged or coerced; rewarded or punished; honored or exploited over the last 250 years. Viewed in this way; the debate over reproductive rights raises questions about access to sex education and prenatal care; about housing laws; about access to citizenship; and about which women lose children to adoption and foster care.Pregnancy and Power shows that a complete understanding of reproductive politics must take into account the many players shaping public policy—lawmakers; educators; employers; clergy; physicians—as well as the consequences for women who obey and resist these policies. Tracing the diverse plotlines of women's reproductive lives throughout American history; Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom; putting race and class at the center of the struggle to control sex and pregnancy in America.