Reproductive Justice & Childbirth

"For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices." -Audre Lorde

Reproductive Justice

Reproductive justice as defined by Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, one of the founding organizations of the term is, The emotional, physical, mental, economic, social, and political and recognizes that the governmental control of reproductive systems and bodies violates all eight categories of human rights. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, also a founding organization of the term, breaks it down to three things: the right to 1) Have a child; 2) Not have a child; and 3) Raise children in safe and healthy environments. Reproductive justice is the product of social justice and reproductive rights. This will be achieved when all women have obtained complete sexual and reproductive autonomy.

PRO-CHOICE	REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE
Isolated Issue	Anti-Racist, Intersectional Model
Abortion	Reproductive Self-Determination
Centers around the experiences of white women. Cis-Gendered Women = Default = NORMATIVE	Centers around marginalized communities, needs and experiences.
Policy = Choice	Policy = Access

Reproductive Freedom

Strategies for establishing reproductive freedom must distinguish between different historical and political contexts. Reproductive freedom can be defined as In comparison, reproductive oppression is viewed as a product and a gateway for different forms of oppression; sexism, homophobia, racism, and classism.

EQUALITY	BIOLOGICAL AUTONOMY
Social Position	Scientific function of the female reproductive system.

Reproductive Rights

Reproductive rights are not equally distributed to all women. Reproductive rights are distorted by an individuals socio-economic status, racial background, gender identification. Variables such as socio-economic status, racial background, and gender identification affect the accessibility of the reproductive right to choose.

Reproductive Health

Reproductive health is defined as the reproductive processes, functions and system at all stages of life. Reproductive health, therefore, implies that people are able to have a responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so . Sexual and reproductive health are frequently viewed through a generalized lens.

Legislation & Policy In Canada

Politics

Reproduction & Abortion, Policy? Capitalist authorities continue to oppress and innately discriminate against indigenous peoples and immigrants, prejudice toward individuals living in poverty. The pervasive inequalities that exist in a patriarchal, capitalistic society. Canadian social policy has aided in the reduction of negative effect on women as a result of oppressive reproduction. A significant change was made when the Canadian Federal Government ruled to decriminalize abortion in 1988. Strategies for establishing reproductive freedom must distinguish between different historical and political contexts. Reproductive oppression continues to permeate in Canada and British Columbia as we have failed to abolish the pervasive inequalities women face, leading to inequalities in their health rights.

US Bill - The Criminalization of Abortion

On October 3, 2017 The House of Representatives in the United States, with White House – Donald Trump Administration approval, passed the bill to repeal existing abortion law and implement policy that would criminalize abortion after twenty weeks of pregnancy. For decades women in Canada and the United States of America have been advocating for abortion rights. Women, should have a say in the creation and passing of reproductive legislation. Do we as women, as human beings truly have the right to choose what we think is best for our bodies, for ourselves? Patriarchal, capitalist politics continue to govern, and perpetuate the pervasive inequalities in regards to women’s reproductive freedom, and its overall justice. #NoAbortionBan.

Biopolitics & Biopower

Biopolitics is the process whereby a woman’s access to prenatal health care means she becomes part of the institutionalization of the pregnant body and the discourse of fetal harm and care, through a set of socially constrained, medical and cultural technologies concerned with testing, ultrasound, diagnosis, prognosis and behavior management. Often generalized as the political management of the conditions of life, or biology. Biopower Is the political and corporate management of human lives. Essentially, biopower is used by the Canadian government to oppress individuals seeking healthcare. In relationship to childbirth, there are copious subjects of intersection layered within interlocking oppressions impacting women's experiences with childbirth.

Social Stigmatization

Social Constraints

Social constraints are imposed and shaped by politics, popular culture, medicine, and the society in which those constraints exist within.

Political

Policy, legislation and reform surround and heavily influence abortion and reproduction in Canada and British Columbia. People in professional positions of authority such as physicians are not critically questioned or analyzed by patients. Is it the fault of those receiving the unquestioned rationale? Or is it the professionals who are naturally inundated into a position of authority because they have corporate or academic credentials? What are essential and non-essential practices? Who is to say what practice is best or normal without research and fact based evidence in making educated, ethical decisions?

Popular Culture

Stereotypes about reproduction and childbirth that popular culture and social media distort individual experience. Popular culture silences the biological realities of childbirth. Stereotypically, women experiencing childbirth are depicted in popular culture having a censored experience in contrast with reality. More often than not we are exposed to a women in a medicalized setting, during labour and after the birthing process. Popular culture censors the reproductive reality of the child birthing process, as it is frequently deemed graphic, inappropriate content for viewers. This censorship creates a unrealistic expectation of childbirth, and disassociates women from this primal process. Depictions of childbirth in popular culture historically take a safe approach when addressing reproduction. The illusion of scientific advancement is a result of interlocking oppressions; biopolitics and biopower. Using social media as a tool in start conversation or seeking support, attempting to educate yourself has blinded individuals to the reality of the bias, generalized, mis-information that floods our feeds and pollutes our minds.

Medical

Unquestioned authority of medical advice from medical practitioners. Existing in a westernized culture we rely heavily on medicine. Historically, Canadian culture is accustomed to this treatment due to the societal constraints of the government’s biopower. Each culture is accustomed to their own culture’s unique construction of medical traditions and methods of treatments and definitions of disease.

Societal

Institutions that shape an individual’s social understanding and experiences. Social institutions are designed to perpetuate gender inequality. Social institutions are designed to structure political and social interaction and engagement. Social institutions are categorized into formal and informal sub-sets. Formal institutions refer to those of policy and human rights, informal institutions as refer to those of social norms and cultural customs.Social institutions purposely influence individuals social understanding, and thus experience. Choices become limited by circumstances, how rights are easily take away as given when based on concepts such as freedom or privacy, and why abortion laws, will never be able to contain what they claim to frame.

Childbirth

Healthcare In British Columbia

Healthcare in Canada is federally funded, granting more accessible medical care for citizens and residents in British Columbia. The healthcare system in British Columbia is a product of social constraints. A system that is heavily reliant, and closely tied to provincial politics. Because healthcare in BC is federally funded, political influence is seemingly preferential in comparison to co-existing social constraints. The healthcare needs of Canadian citizens or immigrants residing in British Columbia very by geographical location, culture, racial background, age, socio-economic status, identifying gender, social class.The Medical Services Plan in British Columbia covers the practice of midwifery. However, it does not cover non-medical doula services, a common accompaniment of midwifery and obstetrics.

Obstetrical Practice

Obstetricians are physicians with specialized education and training in the medical management of pregnancy, labour and birth. They are qualified to manage serious complications of pregnancy and have surgical training for performing cesarean births. They are also usually the care provider for forceps deliveries. An obstetrician can serve as a primary physician, or may act as a consultant to a family physician or midwife if you have complications during your pregnancy or birth.

Hospitalized childbirth and delivery, are traditionally and historically abstract. Medicalized physician assisted childbirth emerged as a regular social practice in the twentieth century. The medicalization of childbirth was an early form of social constraints, imposed on Canadian women. This informal social constraint left women in 1900 reliant on medicalization out of fear that medical practitioners created around childbirth. The government used the medicalization of childbirth as a means to socially constrain, streamline, and normalize obstetrics and childbirth practices in Canada. Womens loss of control and dissatisfaction with the birthing experience has resulted from the introduction of technology into obstetrical practice. Technological society, dehumanizes people by encouraging a mechanical self-image – people viewing themselves as machines.

Ethics

Through the medicalization of childbirth in Canada, physicians have aimed to reduce ethical dilemmas in streamlining patient care. Ethical dilemmas arise in relation to reproduction and childbirth in conflict between the medical rights and responsibilities to the fetus, versus the rights and responsibilities to that of the individual child-bearing.

References

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