Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women's Reproduction in America
The intense policing of women's reproductive capacity places women's health and human rights in great peril. Poor women are pressured to undergo sterilization. Women addicted to illicit drugs risk arrest for carrying their pregnancies to term. Courts, child welfare, and law enforcement agencies fail to recognize the efforts of battered and incarcerated women to care for their children. And decades after Roe, the criminalization of certain procedures and regulation of abortion providers still...
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The Real Issue behind the Abortion DebateAn op-ed by Jeanne Flavin in the San Francisco ChronicleThe intense policing of women's reproductive capacity places women's health and human rights in great peril. Poor women are pressured to undergo sterilization. Women addicted to illicit drugs risk arrest for carrying their pregnancies to term. Courts, child welfare, and law enforcement agencies fail to recognize the efforts of battered and incarcerated women to care for their children. Pregnant inmates are subject to inhumane practices such as shackling during labor and poor prenatal care. And decades after Roe, the criminalization of certain procedures and regulation of abortion providers still obstruct women’s access to safe and private abortions.In this important work, Jeanne Flavin looks beyond abortion to document how the law and the criminal justice system police women’s rights to conceive, to be pregnant, and to raise their children. Through vivid and disturbing case studies, Flavin shows how the state seeks to establish what a 'good woman' and 'fit mother' should look like and whose reproduction is valued. With a stirring conclusion that calls for broad-based measures that strengthen women’s economic position , choice-making, autonomy, sexual freedom, and health care, Our Bodies, Our Crimes is a battle cry for all women in their fight to be fully recognized as human beings. At its heart, this book is about the right of a woman to be a healthy and valued member of society independent of how or whether she reproduces. Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Author and sociologist Flavin (Class, Race, Gender and Crime) turns with typical vigor and abundant research to the subject of women's reproductive rights. Taking a historical perspective, Flavin outlines a set of progressive arguments focusing on abortion and family planning, the parental rights of incarcerated women, and "structural barriers posed by our drug laws and child welfare policies that disproportionately and adversely affect poor and minority women." Flavin's text faces tough issues head on from a viewpoint somewhere to the left of liberal, and her passion for women's rights makes a powerful narrative engine. Bolstered by quotes and firsthand accounts, Flavin delivers eye-opening reports on topics including abortion rights, infant abandonment and battered women, detailing little-noticed or taken-for-granted policies that restrict and remand women. Written in a flowing academic style, Flavin's attention to historical detail and unfailing moral compass make her progressive reexamination of women's rights thorough and convincing. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction 1Part I Beginning1 "Race Criminals": Reproductive Rights in America 11Part II Begetting2 "Breeders": The Right to Procreate 293 "Back-Alley Butchers": Terminating Pregnancies 514 "Baby-Killers": Neonaticide and Infant Abandonment 74Part III Bearing5 "Innocent Preborn Victims": Fetal Protectionism and Pregnant Women 956 "Liars and Whiners": Incarcerated Women's Right to Reproductive Health 119Part IV Mothering7 "Bad Mothers": Incarcerated Women's Ties to Their Children 1398 "Asking for It": Battered Women and Child Custody 164Conclusion: Being 182Notes 191Bibliography 263Acknowledgments 297Index 299About the Author 307
\ Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. \ Author and sociologist Flavin (Class, Race, Gender and Crime) turns with typical vigor and abundant research to the subject of women's reproductive rights. Taking a historical perspective, Flavin outlines a set of progressive arguments focusing on abortion and family planning, the parental rights of incarcerated women, and "structural barriers posed by our drug laws and child welfare policies that disproportionately and adversely affect poor and minority women." Flavin's text faces tough issues head on from a viewpoint somewhere to the left of liberal, and her passion for women's rights makes a powerful narrative engine. Bolstered by quotes and firsthand accounts, Flavin delivers eye-opening reports on topics including abortion rights, infant abandonment and battered women, detailing little-noticed or taken-for-granted policies that restrict and remand women. Written in a flowing academic style, Flavin's attention to historical detail and unfailing moral compass make her progressive reexamination of women's rights thorough and convincing.\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher\ "Flavin set out to examine the policing of women's reproduction in various contexts, and she succeeds in doing so with a text that is exceptionally well researched and written in a style that is both readable and eloquent. This book would make a fine addition to a course dedicated to social-justice issues in women's lives."-Feminist Formations,\ “Illuminates the dark corners of a public polity that holds pregnant women accountable for all aspects and outcomes of their reproduction without offering the compassion, education, or control necessary to produce happy endings—or beginnings.”\ -Jennifer Reich,author of Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System\ “At last, a book that recognizes that reproductive rights encompass more than abortion rights. Our Bodies, Our Crimes covers all of the essential and highly controversial topics regarding the intersection of reproductive rights and criminal justice.”\ -Claire M. Renzetti,co-author of Women, Men, and Society\ “Our Bodies, Our Crimes is a beautifully written and well researched book that makes an original and important contribution to the emerging social science literature on reproductive politics. I strongly recommend it.”\ -Carole Joffe,author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe v Wade\ “Our Bodies, Our Crimes is one of the most compelling books I've read in recent years. Flavin’s writing is exquisite and her documentation is careful and thorough. Whether informing the reader about reproductive freedom, battered women, or incarcerated women, she does so even-handedly and ably captures the complexities and depravities that real women and girls encounter every day in this country. Flavin draws on high profile cases, unknown cases, laws, policies, history, criminology research and much more to explain how her cases are decided by race, gender, class, and sexuality. Her book will help students, legal professionals, gender and legal scholars, and lay people to understand the common themes and threads of violence against women and girls and the sexism, racism, and classism in labeling girls and women deviant and criminals.”\ -Joanne Belknap,author of The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice\ \ \
