Background reading:Transcript:

[0:00:04.3] Welcome to On the Issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. Magazine. You know, were a show that reports, rebels, and tells it just like it is.

On this show, we center your concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality. Join me as we tackle the most compelling issues of our times because on our show history matters. We examine the past, as we think about the future. That couldnt be more relevant for this episode, and as we think about where we are in this country.

Out of the studio, were joined with special guest at the National Womens History Museum for an incredibly important episode that addresses reproductive health rights and justice from a historical point of view, but as we think about matters of history, as we go forward for our future podcasts, thank you for sticking in with us, as we had a little bit of a break over the summer.

Theres so much for us to think about in the coming election term, the 2022 midterms, so much to think about in light of the hearings on the storming and insurrection against the capital and our government, so much to think about in the wake of the post Dobbs era in the United States where weve seen a 10-year-old girl fleeing the state of Ohio to get to Indiana in order to terminate a pregnancy after rape. As weve seen in the state of Wisconsin with a woman who bled for days, more than 10 days, with an incomplete miscarriage going near death before doctors could provide her the standard medical treatment. A woman in Louisiana whos forced to carry a pregnancy with a fetus developing without a skull. A girl in Florida being denied the opportunity to terminate her pregnancy by a judge, who says that shes too immature to decide to have an abortion but somehow mature enough to carry a pregnancy for nine months risking her health and safety and then becoming a mother before even graduating from high school.

Theres so much more in terms of this landscape thats now capturing our country, and so it is important that we think about history, its important that we think about our future, and its important for us to think about what comes next, what can we do to create the kind of future that we want for our country.

I couldnt be more pleased than to be joined by very special guests for this out-of-studio special broadcast. Im joined by Professor Mary Ziegler. You know her as one of the worlds leading historians of the US abortion debate. Shes the author of Abortion and the Law in America: A Legal History, and her new book couldnt be more timely, Dollars for Life: The Antiabortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment.

Im also joined by Sarah Dubow, a professor of history at Williams College and author of the award-winning book, Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America.

Also, with us today, is Deborah White. Professor White is the Board of Governors Professor of History and Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. Shes also the author of Arnt I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South.

Thank you for joining us for this special episode. Sit back and take a good listen.

[0:03:41.6] Michele Goodwin:

I want to start first by engaging with you, Professor Deborah White, and I hope its okay that we can all be on first names for todays show.

Deborah, during your decades of work, you have studied the intersections of race, and sex, and gender. Your work has looked at the very origin story of Black women and their kidnap, sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and in fact, your book, Arnt I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, such a powerful and important book with helping to level set.

I want to start first with a question that seems to have been overlooked in history and that is how Black women navigated the sexual harms, assaults, and rapes that they encountered when being kidnapped and brought to this new world, and what does that mean in terms of thinking about conversations of reproductive autonomy.

[0:04:53.2] Deborah White:

Thats a big one.

[0:04:54.7] Michele Goodwin:

It certainly is. Its a lot, and you know, youre one of the best people that I could find to start us off and answer that question.

[0:05:04.3] Deborah White:

Yeah. So, I know this is about abortion rights, but it really is about bodily autonomy and who controls whose wombs. From the very beginning, African American women were set apart from White women, in this nation, and so that Black women, basically, at the very beginning, in 1662, there is a law that it says that the child follows the condition of the mother, and in as much as the issues of slavery and race had not really been worked out and they were being worked out, you could actually see the progression of how African American women and the control of African American womens wombs really was that that was going to be how or whether or not slavery was even going to survive.

All right, so the very beginning of this nations history, the British, in particular, they decided that the child would follow the condition of the mother, and that meant that, I mean, you know, in Britain, the child followed, you know, based on inheritance rules

[0:06:45.9] Michele Goodwin:

The status of the father.

[0:06:47.0] Deborah White:

The status of the father, and so what they were saying was that it was really if the woman was a slave

[0:06:56.6] Michele Goodwin:

Her children would be slaves.

[0:06:57.8] Deborah White:

Then her child would be a slave, and if the woman was free, then the child would be free, so if you were setting up a system of slavery, based on color, you want to make sure that the babies that Black women have are Black or Brown, but they are of color, and that the children that White women have, that they are White, so if you look at the very founding laws of this country, you find that, you know, there was an attempt to control African American and White womens reproduction.

[0:07:40.4] Michele Goodwin:

So, I want to build upon that because what youre opening the door to are other matters, as well. So, very recently, just a couple years ago, reported in The New York Times and other media, was a study done by 23andMe along with myriad other researchers to study the DNA of Black people, and what they found were incredibly high links to White male genetics, part of that historic story of slavery, and it seems to me that that connects with what it is that you are saying because if children will inherit the status of their mothers, then that means that Black women are increasingly vulnerable to what would be these kind of perverse incentives. If you want more enslaved people on your plantation, then you force this Black woman to reproduce, and it also then means that if youre White, you dont have to worry about that child claiming some inheritance from your estate or your property because that child is the status of that woman. In fact, Black women were considered property, that property that birthed it.

[0:09:00.9] Deborah White:

Yeah. Of course, I mean, that was the thought, and that was the desire, but it never worked out that way. Obviously, White women had children with Black men, and so some of their children were Brown and some Brown children, particularly some women, were the children of White mothers, but I mean, in theory, if you could control the race or the color of the children that were born, then you could essentially control how slavery would proceed, but it was always very, very, very messy, so in some of the very early laws of this nation, you had White women being penalized for having children that were Brown.

[0:10:02.0] Michele Goodwin:

Well, it is messy, isnt it?

[0:10:03.7] Deborah White:

And they were fined, and sometimes, they were put in jail, and there were all kinds of laws.

I think the bottom line really is that children carry, in some peoples ideas, in some peoples ideology, in fact, children carry the nation, and the way of the nation is determined by the children that come out of womens wombs, and therefore, its been very important to control who marries who, and its been very important to control who has sex.

I mean, so the issues of sexual integrity and the issues of reproduction are all tied up together, and with issues of nationalism.

[0:11:02.3] Michele Goodwin:

Sure. Well, you know, it also strikes me, too, by what youre saying, is the hypodescent rules, you know, otherwise, known as the one drop rule, which, otherwise, colors, no pun intended, exactly what it is that youre saying here.

[0:11:19.8] Deborah White:

Yes. Yeah.

[0:11:21.3] Michele Goodwin:

And then the anti-miscegenation rules, as well, in terms of who can marry whom, I mean, which existed and persisted long beyond slaverys abolition.

[0:11:31.9] Deborah White:

_____ [0:11:32.1].

[0:11:32.3] Michele Goodwin:

Long, deeply beyond Jim Crowe. I mean, 1967 is when the Supreme Court finally strikes down the anti-miscegenation laws.

[0:11:41.0] Deborah White:

Yeah.

[0:11:41.8] Michele Goodwin:

Yeah, and whats interesting about that, and then were going to come back to this, Im going to turn to Sarah for a moment here, but what strikes me is as being very interesting about 1967 with the Supreme Court finally striking down anti-miscegenation laws is that Virginia came kind of, you know, with full force defending its laws,

wanting to persist into the late 1960s and 70s with anti-miscegenation on the books. Its fascinating, and to your point, one of the ways in which they defend the law is to say that theyre protecting children, theyre protecting future offspring, so fascinating.

Well, Sarah, Im so happy that youre joining us for this very important dialogue and conversation. Interestingly, you too have roots at Rutgers, as well, which is really terrific. Rutgers has really just been showing such mightiness across these spaces. Some of our viewers and listeners will know that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, before she was a justice, Ginsburg taught at Rutgers, and so what a fascinating history and present at Rutgers.

So, youve taught at a number of places, and your work examines the intersections of gender, law, and politics in the 20th century, and your book, Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America, just an incredible page turner, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is considering learning more, wanting to know more in this space.

So, how do we build upon this history that Deborah just started us off with? I know with your work it covers the space before Roe v. Wade. What is the leadup? How do we further contextualize exactly what the concerns were with regard to reproductive health rights justice, if you can, before Roe?

[0:13:58.0] Sarah Dubow:

Thanks. Im really glad that we began this conversation with Deborahs longer history and context because I think its really impossible to sort of separate the story of the history of reproductive politics, reproductive justice, abortion politics from the history of slavery, of race, of controlling womens bodies, controlling Black womens bodies in particular ways, and that history is really completely absent from the Dobbs decisions majority opinion, and I know that were not just here to talk about Dobbs, but I did want to sort of start

[0:14:33.7] Michele Goodwin:

Oh, please start. I mean, because that would talk about a hot mess, you know, opportunistic readings of history, you know, hopscotch around history. I mean, it was an unfortunate just in terms of the quality of the research and the quality of analysis was really far shortened in that opinion.

[0:14:57.8] Sarah Dubow:

Yeah, and I think, at the same time, it was so committed to framing itself as a historical analysis, so I think that the decision reallyI mean, I think, it cites the word history sort of 67 times, at least, and you know the conclusion is sort of that he says, you know, theres this unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment from the earliest days of common law through 1973.

[0:15:21.9] Michele Goodwin:

Which is an error.

[0:15:23.9] Sarah Dubow:

Its an error.

[0:15:24.3] Michele Goodwin:

Its false.

[0:15:25.1] Sarah Dubow:

Its an error.

[0:15:27.2] Michele Goodwin:

Thats a polite way of saying it, right, Sarah, it is an error.

[0:15:30.7] Sarah Dubow:

Its an error. Its a contradistinction to sort of the consensus view of most historians, and so I thought it might be helpful to just sort of lay out what that consensus really is.

[0:15:41.7] Michele Goodwin:

I think thats a great place to begin, and as you do, I think its worth noting that to the extent that Justice Alito frames himself as an originalist and textualist, and says, well, abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, its worth noting that pregnancy isnt mentioned in the Constitution, labor and delivery arent mentioned in the Constitution, that there are things that are just so normalized in terms of human existence that werent mentioned in the Constitution, you know, suggesting that labor, pregnancy, or abortion should be mentioned in the Constitution as if saying male erection should be listed in the Constitution, and Im not being sloppy or humorous with that, but its just that, you know, why exactly this sort of examination of the womans body in the Constitution and not a mans body in a document that was written by and for men, largely.

[0:16:40.5] Sarah Dubow:

Yeah, and I think, I mean, the narrowness of it is a choice, right, I mean, so the premise of the decision is to sort of look at these written laws that were passed around the time of the 14th amendments ratification, and to sort of say, look, all of these state laws are criminalizing abortion, and theres some degree of truth to that, that in the late 19th century there were a series of laws that were passed in the states that were picking up on common law and codifying it, and criminalizing abortion and statutes, and a lot of those laws. I mean, I think the motivation behind those laws is also really important to think about, actually.

[0:17:20.6] Michele Goodwin:

Oh, share, Sarah, because we know what those motivations were. Those were laws that came up in the wake of the demise of slavery.

[0:17:28.0] Sarah Dubow:

Yeah, so they came up in the wake of the demise of slavery, the 14th amendment is passed. I mean, I guess, it goes without saying, although Ill say it, you know, its the laws being codified.

[0:17:38.1] Michele Goodwin:

Say it, Sarah. Say it.

[0:17:40.2] Sarah Dubow:

The laws were being codified are, you know, written by White men, theyre being ratified in legislatures where women are not voting, where Black women are not voting, where many Black men, at this point in time, were not voting, and so, you know, to pick that moment

[0:17:54.9] Michele Goodwin:

And just nothing not voting because they cant vote, right, like not voting because, oh, youre just so apathetic, and youre just not exercising your right to vote, right?

[0:18:04.4] Sarah Dubow:

Correct. Correct. I mean, so women cannot vote, and theres a lot of violence and voter suppression following the 15th amendment that makes it extremely dangerous for Black men to vote, and so those laws are passed, and those laws also do retain though some distinctions between stages in pregnancy, and they impose different penalties depending on the stage of pregnancy, and when you look at the actual implementation of those laws, you actually see that theres a big gap between how those laws are written and how those laws are interpreted by juries, for example.

I mean, first of all, very few cases are actually ever prosecuted, at that time, but also, when juries decide, they often dont uphold those laws, and they find that theres not a crime actually being committed that they want to punish, and at the same time, theres also the motive behind the laws, which is drivenI mean, there are a couple of reasons for it, and we can sort of flesh them out, but they were led by a doctor named Horatio Storer, was one of the leading _____ [0:19:10.6].

[0:19:10.5] Michele Goodwin:

Absolutely, Horatio Storer and Joseph DeLee, I mean, you know, they write about how urgent it is that White women use their loins and go east, north, south, and west. It kind of reminds me of the contemporary rhetoric that we hear from the kind of self-described White nationalist and White Christian nationalist, who are concerned about replacement and the whole replacement theory, this idea that as soon as Black people are freed from the chains and boughs of slavery that somehow, theyll just darken the United States and White people will be replaced.

[0:19:47.5] Sarah Dubow:

I mean, thats a huge anxiety for these people, who are passing the laws, and Alito acknowledges it, and he says, but really, like we dont know what they really meant. I mean, they were telling us what they really meant.

[0:19:58.9] Michele Goodwin:

They were writing it. Horatio Storer couldnt have been morethe thing that I find fascinating, Sarah, oh, and Im just loving this conversation, but the thing that I find fascinating is the misreading, rereading of the explicit things that people wrote, right.

[0:20:11.7] Sarah Dubow:

Right.

See the original post here:
63. History Matters: Understanding Abortion Rights in the U.S. and What Comes Next (with Mary Ziegler, Sarah Dubow and Deborah White) - Ms. Magazine

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