User:ClickerClock/Abortion and ableism

Maybe I should rename this? Like I'm pro choice and I have some criticisms of the pro choice movement. Like maybe a page called "Actual Valid Criticism of the Pro Choice Movement"? ClickerClock (talk) 03:59, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

References

• https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/12/7/16746790/health-care-black-history-inequality
• https://rewire.news/article/2014/10/17/pro-choice-movement-excludes-people-disabilities/
• Margaret Sanger's Negro Project
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkERSYPLzqc

The 1920s

The history of abortion did not start from eugenics. But early American proponents of abortion, 1920s, did so supporting eugenics.

“” The feebleminded are notoriously prolific in reproduction.

—Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race

The probability of a child handicapped by a weak constitution, an overcrowded home, inadequate food and care, and possibly a deficient mental equipment, winding up in prison or an almshouse, is too evident for comment. Every jail, hospital for the insane, reformatory and institution for the feebleminded cries out against the evils of too prolific breeding among wageworkers.

[…]

They come from large impoverished families—from families in which the older children must put their often feeble strength to the task of supporting the younger. The immorality of bringing large families into the world is recognized by those who are combatting the child-labor evil.

—Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race

the state has a right to step in and prevent propagation and the corruption and the pollution of the race.

[…]

the best thing would be to gently chloroform the [disabled] children or to give them a dose of potassium cyanide

—William J. Robinson, Eugenics, Marriage and Birth Control: Practical Eugenics

These people are gross. Pro choice activists of today ignore the past and defend these late proponents to some extent. A bit too positive article from the Freedom from Religion Foundation praising Joseph l. Lewis. Lewis was vice president of an group called the Eugenics Society. I think https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2973307/pdf/eugenrev00058-0001b.pdf

http://www.textbookhistory.com/purity-pornography-and-eugenics-in-the-1930s-part-ii/

Today

Abortion activism nowadays focus on suffering that are caused by a lack of abortion.

Some disabled people have conditions that pregnancy will probably result in miscarriage or death of the pregnant person. Some fetuses have disabilities that will cause a miscarriage. Preventing a miscarriage will prevent the suffering of the child and family. Providing abortion rights respects the bodily autonomy of these disabled people.

Since traces of ableism remain in modern day American pro choice activism.

In this decision I felt utterly abandoned by both sides. In the pro-choice camps, I didn’t represent the woman rejecting a life of burden, and on the pro-life side, no one cared what became of my child or me since I choose to carry to birth.

https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/pro-choice-parents-of-kids-with-downs-syndrome/

But every time someone on MY side opens their mouths and tells stories about people aborting their disabled fetuses in order to show why we NEED abortion, I feel sick. I feel betrayed. I feel like my life isn’t worth considering.

http://feministsonar.com/2013/07/pro-choice-should-not-mean-ableist/

Disabled women have been routinely sterilized or maintained on birth control, such as Depo-Provera which stops periods and prevents conception. These practices have been convenient for care givers and institutions. While traditionally the project of wiping out disability has centered on eliminating disabled bodies, today, Inheritable Genetic Modification (IGM), aims to modify the human gene pool to exclude genes that cause (or might cause) various disabilities.

http://www.protectchoice.org/article.php?id=140