SOCI 365 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Margaret Sanger, Reproductive Rights, Biomedicine
5 May 2018
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Lecture 8 – January 25th
Continued
Stratified Reproduction
• Right to choose
o Birth control, abortion, etc.
Racist Roots of the Birth Control Movement
• Margaret Sanger (1979-1966)
o Coined and popularized the term birth control in 9s and 9s
• It was tainted by the racism of the eugenics movement also under way at the time, which Sanger
also ultimately advocated
• By 1939, the Eugenics society boasted that at least 26 states had passed compulsory sterilization
laws
• Within the same racist ideology of that movement, Sanger’s birth control movement began to
extend their project into communities of colour, not with the progressive goal of equal access, but
within the racist ideology of population control
• The historically racist roots of reproductive rights and failure of the movement to align itself
against eugenics and forced sterilization kept many women of colour away from the early
women’s health movement
Lesbians and the Women’s Health Movement
• One source of contention in the movement
• Focus on reproduction, abortion, etc.
• How radical should the movement be?
• Who gets to speak on behalf of women?
o Issue of representation
Co-optation
• To take or assume for one’s own use; appropriate
• Since the 1970s, WHM and medicine have changed
• Critics describe ways in which some segments of that movement have been co-opted by
dominant medical institutions
• Drug advertisements = good example
• In the decades since the 97s, the women’s health movement has changed and critics describe
ways in which some segments of that movement have been co-opted by dominant medical
institutions
• Those changes fought for by activists often become co-opted by mainstream biomedicine
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