Menu-Photo
Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram

Imagining freedom and dignity in pregnancy and all of its potential outcomes. 

Led by Color Of Change, this network is dedicated to ending the criminalization of pregnancy, which starts with ensuring Black people are seen, heard, and trusted.
Learn More
Sign the Petition
How has the United States created a system that deprives Black women and pregnant people of their liberty and dignity?
1844-1849

Slavery: The Original Fight for Reproductive Control

  • Anarcha, Betsy, Lucy and at least nine other unidentified enslaved women and girls worked together for Dr. James Marion Sims also known as the “Father of Gynecology.”
  • Sims regularly performed forced surgeries, without anesthesia, on these enslaved women under the guise of science.
  • This medical terrorism was used to justify racist assumptions about the Black women and their bodies. Followers of his work embraced notions that Black women had a higher tolerance for pain when receiving medical treatment, while ignoring that these women were forcibly restrained under threat of death for these procedures. Such stereotypes have informed contemporary medical racism.
1880-1920

Eradication by Any Means Necessary

  • Eugenics, or the racist pseudoscience that believes marginalized people could be eradicated through planned reproduction, began to influence much of U.S. policy. President Theodore Roosevelt endorsed eugenic steralization and even made it a fixture of his agenda by urging white Americans to avoid the dangers of “race suicide” by producing large families.
  • At the same time, the Black population in the South was limited by poverty in a post-Emancipation era. As a result, fertility rates of Black women declined by one-third, due primarily to poor nutrition and decreased life expectancy. But Eugenicists weren’t satisfied, they sought to speed up the decline.
  • By 1907, Indiana became the first state to establish medical institutions whose primary goal was to sterilize women without their consent. Criminals, “imbeciles” whose conditions were often not backed by science or confirmed by doctors—poor people and Black women were hit hardest.
  • Within six years, eleven additional states had enacted involuntary sterilization laws & twenty-four states enacted laws forbidding marriage by people considered genetically defective.
1965

Blaming the breakdown of the Black family on Black women

  • Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote the Moynihan report, also known as “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” The report justified racial class inequality and described single motherhood or female-headed families, and out-of-wedlock births as the primary cause of Black poverty and barrier to attaining racial equality.
  • Moynihan’s determinations continue to have support. His views are often touted by Conservative political pundits to dismiss blatant injustices against Black communities as the result of family structure, not exploitation and oppression.
1970s

Forced Sterilizations become routine practice

  • The U.S. government began to sponsor programs that not only encouraged Black women to use birth control but also coerced them into being sterilized.
  • Sterilization became the most rapidly growing form of birth control in the U.S., rising from 200,000 cases in 1970 to over 700,000 in 1980. Teaching hospitals across the South routinely performed unnecessary hysterectomies on poor Black women for medical practice. It became so popular that it was commonly referred to as “Mississippi Appendectomies.”
  • In June 1973, Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf, were just 12 and 14 years old when they were sterilized without their consent under the federally funded Montgomery Community Action Agency constructed the program. It was later uncovered that 100,000 -150,000 poor women, almost half were Black, like the Relf sisters were similarly sterilized through the use of an experimental long acting contraceptive which were often referred to as hormonal injections.
1980s

“Problem” pregnancies are criminal offenses

  • “Crack babies” became a term to legitimize a siege on Black pregnant women and the draconian measures that followed -- hospitals began drug testing pregnant women and newborns, reporting mothers to law enforcement who had trained nurses to protect evidence, thus deputizing medical professionals based on their assumptions about an individual woman’s choices.
  • Between 1985 and 1995 at least two hundred women in the thirty states were charged a range of crimes based on pregnancy and drug use.
1990s

Waging War Against Black Families

  • In 1996, Congress replaced the New Deal-era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a new program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), under the guise of “ending welfare as we know it.”
  • Although the majority of welfare recipients were white, politicians and media alike used gross stereotypes to pathologize Black women as the primary beneficiaries of the welfare state. As a result, states would cap the limit of children women could have to secure benefits, subsequently denying many many families income they needed to survive. ​
Today

No Dignity for Mothers Giving Birth in Prison

  • As of 2020, there were 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. ¾ of incarcerated women are of childbearing age, between 18 and 44 years. More than 60% of women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18, and most of these women are mothers or primary caregivers of their families. Yet, no required standards for reproductive, prenatal or pregnancy care in prisons exist.
  • Gender-specific data on the status of incarcerated women and girls and their access to reproductive healthcare and justice is scarce. First-hand accounts help to paint a fuller picture of the quality of care incarcerated women receive behind bars when pregnant including:
  • Dismissal of complaints of extreme pain
  • Lack of examination during incarceration period
  • Strip searching
  • Shackling to bed during birth
  • Practice persists despite bans
  • Lack of treatment for treatable infections that can directly result in the loss of a fetus
  • Extreme hunger, withholding healthy food, inadequate or spoiled food
  • Long, immobile wait periods while waiting to be seen by doctors, threatened discipline for non-compliance
Today

Black women still face punishment for pregnancy decisions

  • There are more than 1,200 documented cases of women, disproportionately Black and working class women, being penalized by the criminal legal system for pregnancy outcomes
  • Today, 29 states have feticide homicide laws that can be used to charge a mother for pregnancy outcomes, whether those outcomes are the result of addiction or an accidental fall down the stairs. The result is that women already suffering from addiction, mental health disorders or trauma from abuse that result in the death of their child can be charged with murder. And while these arrests and prosecutions are happening across the nation, low-income Black women in the South are most likely targeted and charged.
  • The result is that women already suffering from addiction, mental health disorders or trauma from abuse that result in the death of their child can be charged with murder. And while these arrests and prosecutions are happening across the nation, low-income Black women in the South are most likely targeted and charged.
Sign the Petition
1844-1849

Slavery: The Original Fight for Reproductive Control

  • Anarcha, Betsy, Lucy and at least nine other unidentified enslaved women and girls worked together for Dr. James Marion Sims also known as the “Father of Gynecology.”
  • Sims regularly performed forced surgeries, without anesthesia, on these enslaved women under the guise of science.
  • This medical terrorism was used to justify racist assumptions about the Black women and their bodies. Followers of his work embraced notions that Black women had a higher tolerance for pain when receiving medical treatment, while ignoring that these women were forcibly restrained under threat of death for these procedures. Such stereotypes have informed contemporary medical racism.
1880-1920

Eradication by Any Means Necessary

  • Eugenics, or the racist pseudoscience that believes marginalized people could be eradicated through planned reproduction, began to influence much of U.S. policy. President Theodore Roosevelt endorsed eugenic steralization and even made it a fixture of his agenda by urging white Americans to avoid the dangers of “race suicide” by producing large families.
  • At the same time, the Black population in the South was limited by poverty in a post-Emancipation era. As a result, fertility rates of Black women declined by one-third, due primarily to poor nutrition and decreased life expectancy. But Eugenicists weren’t satisfied, they sought to speed up the decline.
  • By 1907, Indiana became the first state to establish medical institutions whose primary goal was to sterilize women without their consent. Criminals, “imbeciles” whose conditions were often not backed by science or confirmed by doctors—poor people and Black women were hit hardest.
  • Within six years, eleven additional states had enacted involuntary sterilization laws & twenty-four states enacted laws forbidding marriage by people considered genetically defective.
1990s

Waging War Against Black Families

  • In 1996, Congress replaced the New Deal-era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a new program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), under the guise of “ending welfare as we know it.”
  • Although the majority of welfare recipients were white, politicians and media alike used gross stereotypes to pathologize Black women as the primary beneficiaries of the welfare state. As a result, states would cap the limit of children women could have to secure benefits, subsequently denying many many families income they needed to survive. ​
Today

No Dignity for Mothers Giving Birth in Prison

  • As of 2020, there were 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. ¾ of incarcerated women are of childbearing age, between 18 and 44 years. More than 60% of women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18, and most of these women are mothers or primary caregivers of their families. Yet, no required standards for reproductive, prenatal or pregnancy care in prisons exist.
  • Gender-specific data on the status of incarcerated women and girls and their access to reproductive healthcare and justice is scarce. First-hand accounts help to paint a fuller picture of the quality of care incarcerated women receive behind bars when pregnant including:
  • Dismissal of complaints of extreme pain
  • Lack of examination during incarceration period
  • Strip searching
  • Shackling to bed during birth
  • Practice persists despite bans
  • Lack of treatment for treatable infections that can directly result in the loss of a fetus
  • Extreme hunger, withholding healthy food, inadequate or spoiled food
  • Long, immobile wait periods while waiting to be seen by doctors, threatened discipline for non-compliance
1965

Blaming the breakdown of the Black family on Black women

  • Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote the Moynihan report, also known as “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” The report justified racial class inequality and described single motherhood or female-headed families, and out-of-wedlock births as the primary cause of Black poverty and barrier to attaining racial equality.
  • Moynihan’s determinations continue to have support. His views are often touted by Conservative political pundits to dismiss blatant injustices against Black communities as the result of family structure, not exploitation and oppression.
1970s

Forced Sterilizations become routine practice

  • The U.S. government began to sponsor programs that not only encouraged Black women to use birth control but also coerced them into being sterilized.
  • Sterilization became the most rapidly growing form of birth control in the U.S., rising from 200,000 cases in 1970 to over 700,000 in 1980. Teaching hospitals across the South routinely performed unnecessary hysterectomies on poor Black women for medical practice. It became so popular that it was commonly referred to as “Mississippi Appendectomies.”
  • In June 1973, Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf, were just 12 and 14 years old when they were sterilized without their consent under the federally funded Montgomery Community Action Agency constructed the program. It was later uncovered that 100,000 -150,000 poor women, almost half were Black, like the Relf sisters were similarly sterilized through the use of an experimental long acting contraceptive which were often referred to as hormonal injections.
1980s

“Problem” pregnancies are criminal offenses

  • “Crack babies” became a term to legitimize a siege on Black pregnant women and the draconian measures that followed -- hospitals began drug testing pregnant women and newborns, reporting mothers to law enforcement who had trained nurses to protect evidence, thus deputizing medical professionals based on their assumptions about an individual woman’s choices.
  • Between 1985 and 1995 at least two hundred women in the thirty states were charged a range of crimes based on pregnancy and drug use.
Today

Black women still face punishment for pregnancy decisions

  • There are more than 1,200 documented cases of women, disproportionately Black and working class women, being penalized by the criminal legal system for pregnancy outcomes
  • Today, 29 states have feticide homicide laws that can be used to charge a mother for pregnancy outcomes, whether those outcomes are the result of addiction or an accidental fall down the stairs. The result is that women already suffering from addiction, mental health disorders or trauma from abuse that result in the death of their child can be charged with murder. And while these arrests and prosecutions are happening across the nation, low-income Black women in the South are most likely targeted and charged.
  • The result is that women already suffering from addiction, mental health disorders or trauma from abuse that result in the death of their child can be charged with murder. And while these arrests and prosecutions are happening across the nation, low-income Black women in the South are most likely targeted and charged.
Sign the Petition

OUR MISSION

Prosecutors across the country have power to say NO to criminalizing pregnancy.

That’s why we must call on them to prioritize internal policies that are rooted in Reproductive Justice and resources that institute an anti-racist, anti-classist, community-based and holistic model of health care.

Sign the Petition

In Their own Words

Stories of Liberation

Hear tales of strength, resilience, and dignity from five Black abortion storytellers who refuse to have their voices silenced.

Kenya Martin

“Never let a stranger shame you into becoming a parent when you don’t want to be a parent.”

Her Story

Brittany Mostiller

“My abortion shifted the trajectory of my life. Not only did it expand my community but it also transformed how I parent and practice living inside of my values every day.”

Her Story

Jordyn Close​​

“As I’ve continued to share my story, I’ve learned that the negative feelings people often have when getting an abortion, or when talking about abortion is because of stigma.”

Her Story

Larada Lee

“I deserve to have access to the resources I need to make these decisions about my body, I deserve to be able to make this decision.”

Her Story

Lexis Dotson-Dufault

“I want people reading to know that it’s possible for people who have historically been silenced to share their experiences and be supported and celebrated while doing so.”

Her Story

Your Voice

Share Your Story

Record a YourVoice Video sharing your story or solidarity on this issue.

Share Now
Facebook Twitter Youtube

Powered by Color of Change

POWERED BY COLOR OF CHANGE
SEE ALL EFFORTS
Play Video