House Considers “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act,” I.e. the We-Don’t-Trust-Women-Of-Color Act →
I’m writing today to ask my fellow women of color reproductive justice activists and our allies to take a united stand against the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act(PRENDA), a race- and sex-specific anti-abortion bill thatwent before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution today. I cannot repeat enough times the urgency of moving quickly to act in solidarity.
Click here to contact your Congressperson to tell them that you strongly oppose this racist and anti-woman legislation.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/12/06/house-considers-prenatal-nondiscrimination-ac/
“This is a federal version of legislation that a coalition of women-of-color organizations defeated at the local level in Georgia. It attempts to restrict women of color’s access to abortion and prenatal care in the name of “civil rights.” This bill seeks to protect “unborn Americans” by banning race- and sex-selection abortions. However, the argument that fetuses must be protected from the women of color relies on racist stereotypes about entire communities:
This is incredibly important and I’m asking all of you to help. We need to move on this immediately.
- First, that Black women are selfish, irresponsible, and incapable of making reproductive decisions on their own behalf
- Second, that Asian women mindlessly reproduce “son preference” and bring “dangerous values” into the country.”
This sounds like, only white women can have abortions. And Susan B. Anthony, wasn’t she a racist fuck? The fuck is with the putting of names like this on legislation that absolutely sucks? Ugh, this pissed me off. Signal boost.
what now? hell no. i can’t even believe this is a thing, but of course it would be. this is just so backwards, the way to support Women of Color and families is NOT through limiting reproductive options. I mean lets tear down a prison first, leave abortion services and providers alone. let this bill die. die bill. die.
For reference, here is the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act as it was proposed in Georgia in February-March 2010. (The second link is to the most current iteration): HB1155 version 1. HB1155 version 2.
Even in these versions, you can see how the surface politics of “[preventing] an unborn child from being born based upon the race, color, or gender of the unborn child or the race or color of either parent of that child;” translates to ‘preventing the birth of a child because of the child’s or the parent’s race/color/gender is bad and wrong.’ But I hope we can all see that the bill, at its very least, actually translates to (further) judgement, mistrust and undermining of women of color’s autonomy with regards to their own health needs. It furthermore puts pressure on the personal and sexual histories of women of color and would especially restrict women of color to important resources while others are given the authority to determine the legitimacy of their health needs. And don’t even get me started about the bullshit presumption that race and other intersections around one’s race or color has nothing to do with a woman’s personal, emotional and sexual histories/health. So yeah, c’mon folks, down with this shit and power&support to our sisters of color!
(via rosadefuego)
