Comments on: Black Lives Matter, But So Do Black Female Bodies

By: Joe Rorem

Joe Rorem — Thu, 12 May 2016 20:58:47 +0000

I echo Steven 100%. This is a great post.

I think another consideration is the lives of sex workers and the coercion levied disproportionately at Black women by people who profit off of prostitution, and how that can also result in unwanted pregnancies. These are pregnancies suffered through by women at the height of vulnerability, on the opposite end of the spectrum from Trump and many of his supporters.

By: Steven Feldman

Steven Feldman — Sat, 07 May 2016 20:07:36 +0000

What got to me was the for the longest time, I viewed abortion rights as something uniquely for women. I thought of it as a topic of gender or sex and that was it. But I love how you brought in an intersectional approach, including the factors of race and class. It really opened my eyes to how these issues that are often placed into one category, really do disproportionately affect people of various marginalized groups.

By: Jen Beck

Jen Beck — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 15:41:26 +0000

I’m so captivated by your post. It’s always been so frustrating to me that the people making these laws tend to be the people that the laws won’t apply to. They don’t have to think on the repercussions of those laws, because they’ll never have to personally face them. And when you add in the racialized component of it, and take into consideration that most of these lawmakers are white, then there’s probably an implicit sense of white superiority there. To me, it speaks to an attitude that says “WE don’t need this because we’re better than it.”

By: Anna Robinson

Anna Robinson — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 12:10:52 +0000

A Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote came to mind as I read your blog: “There will never be a time in this country when women of means won’t have a choice. A woman who can afford a plane ticket, a bus ticket will always be able to choose whether to have an abortion. The women who won’t have that choice are poor women. That doesn’t make sense.” What I find so fascinating about this issue is the ways that the visibility of poor women and invisibility of wealthy women make it seem as thought poor women are the only one’s getting abortions leading to allegations about their rogue sexuality. Their visibility in the publics eye leads to the stigmatization of their bodies, making it seem as though you have to be wealthy to have any kind of acceptable sexuality. Very frustrating.

I also suggest you read Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights by Katha Pollitt, she breaks down the logic behind anti-choice rhetoric in a really interesting way.

By: ginellewolfe1

ginellewolfe1 — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 17:07:10 +0000

About a month ago, I went to a Planned Parenthood rally in DC and noticed a group of women chanting “Trust Black Women”. I think that this really relates to your post and the internationality you describe. This is the website if you wanted to look further into it! http://www.trustblackwomen.org/