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Midwives vs Hospitals
1700-1800
Lying-in hospitals(Maternity Hospital) are established for the poor. Childbearing women die in droves from puerperal fever, because of physicians examining one woman after another and cadavers, without washing their hands. 50% of births are at home European midwives immigrate to America. Indigenous and Hispanic midwives serve their community. Enslaved African midwives are “called by dreams and visions” to attend women in childbirth (Judith Rooks, Midwifery and Childbirth in America). -
United States Constitution ratified.
The terms “persons,” “people” and “electors” are used, allowing the interpretation of those beings to include men and women but these rights were not extended to African slaves or Native People. (Photo by Dyaa Eldin on Unsplash) -
President Andrew Jackson
He encourages his troops to kill women and children in order to decimate current and future generation of Native people. -
Monster or Father of Modern Gynecology?
J. Marion Sims did experiments on enslaved women to perfect a technique to repair a condition called vesicovaginal/rectovaginal fistula, an opening between the vagina and also the bladder or the vagina and the rectum. At first, experiments were done on White women but they could not endure the pain. They were performed on enslaved women without anesthesia it was believed at the time that black people did not feel pain in the same way that White women did. -
Missouri v. Celia
A Black enslaved woman is declared to be property without a right to defend herself against a master’s act of rape. -
Comstock Laws
The Comstock law forbade the sending through the mail of any drug or medicine or any article whatever for the prevention of conception." The 1873 act did not focus on fertility control, but was a statute that included birth control and abortion among a long list of commercial obscenities. Comstock rallied against contraceptive devices bought and sold in commercial spaces, not against natural forms of birth control such as abstinence and the rhythm. -
Congress passes the Page Act
The Page Act which effectively ended the entry of unmarried Asian women into the country as a way of limiting family development. -
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Eugenics
During the Progressive Era eugenics was considered a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups in the population; through “betterment of the human race” through selective breeding. It was believed some people should not have children (Blacks, Hispanics, mentally ill, mentally delayed, disabled, etc.) White women were encouraged to have a lot of children. -
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Native American Boarding Schools
Native American children were sent to boarding schools to
“assimilate.” Students are punished for speaking an indigenous language or practicing religion and culture. -
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Medical Birthing Practices
The process of giving birth becomes increasingly
medical, and traditional birthing practices decrease
under pressure from doctors and medical establishment.
In 1915, 40% of all births were attended by midwives.
By 1935, that number had decreased to 10.7%. -
The Indiana Eugenics law
Indiana became the first state mandating the sterilization of those seen as “unfit for reproduction” based off the 1849 bill by Gordon Lincecum. It states that those with believed heredity problems such as criminality, mental illness, and pauperism (or being poor) were to be forcibly sterilized in order to preserve the rights of birth to those who would reproduce “good” genes. The laws were then passed in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington and California. -
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Antimiscegenation laws
In the United States, the various state laws prohibited the marriage of whites and blacks, and in many states also Asians. In the US, such laws were called antimiscegenation(interbreeding) laws. From 1913 until 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced such laws. -
Margaret Sanger's FIrst Clinic
An Irish immigrant from upstate New York, she worked as a nurse throughout her early life. Her mother died of a combination of childbirth and tuberculosis. That loss motivated Sanger to advocate for the birthrights of women. Margaret Sanger tests the validity of New York’s anti-contraception law by establishing a clinic in Brooklyn. She is one of the hundreds arrested over a 40-year period for working to establish women’s right to control their own bodies. Founder of Planned Parenthood -
New York v. Sanger
Margaret Sanger wins her suit in New York to allow doctors to advise their married patients about birth control for health purposes. -
Women’s Suffrage Movement
1848-1919 Women’s Suffrage Movement worked for women to get the right to vote. It was not extended to indigenous native women, Hispanic women or enslaved African women. -
United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries
A plain-wrapped package sent from Japan and seized by U.S. Customs. The U.S. Court of Appeals issued a ruling that released “One Package, containing 120, more or less, Rubber Pessaries to Prevent Conception” from confiscation. It was a historic decision that effectively disabled the Comstock laws and legalized doctor-prescribed contraception. Orchestrated by Margaret Sanger and attorney, Morris Ernst it secured the legal foundation for rulings on reproductive and privacy rights. -
Sexuality Education
U.S Public Health Service recommends the teaching of sexuality
education in public schools. -
Internment at Tule Lake
Testimony during hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians indicate women who were rounded up along with over 110,000 Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066, were sterilized without their knowledge while interned at Tule Lake. -
The "Guatemala Experiment"
U.S government deliberately infected experiment subjects with syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid to study ways to treat sexually transmitted diseases and prevent them from spreading. -
Henrietta Lacks
HeLa cells were the first human cells successfully cloned in 1955
from a Black woman names Henrietta Lacks . Johns Hopkins took the cells from her, and Dr. George Gey, was the first to replicate the cellular strain in mass production, giving away the cell line which was used in numerous trials. -
Clinical trials for birth control pill
Clinical trials on early forms of the birth control pill are performed on women living in housing projects in Puerto Rico. Levels of estrogen and progesterone are 20 times the eventually acceptable levels, creating harmful side effects for women. -
Griswold v. Connecticut
Supreme decision establishing a married couples right to access
contraception. -
President Lyndon Johnson
Signed historic legislation, creating Medicare and Medicaid health care programs that provide health insurance to the elderly
and poor in the United States. -
Loving v. Virginia
The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. With this ruling, these laws
were no longer in effect in the remaining 17 states that at the time still enforced. -
Private Agencies & Puerto Rican Gov'
Date by which a campaign by private agencies
and the Puerto Rican government resulted in the
sterilization of 1/3 of Puerto Rican women of
childrearing age. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots occurred in New York City. Sparked by
Sylvia Rivera, a Puerto Rican drag queen and transgender activist,
queer and transgender people fought against the police during a
raid on the Stonewall bar. This marked a new phase in the LGBT
liberation movement.
One of the customers at Stonewall Inn on the night of the raid was
an immigrant man who committed suicide rather than be deported
for being gay. -
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Indian Health Services
Sterilization of 25% of Indian women living
on reservations. In 1975 alone, 25,000
women are sterilized by the Indian Health Services -
Rights for Abortion
Roe v. Wade – Supreme Court
decision establishing a women’s
right to abortion. -
Gender Identity Disorder
American Psychiatric Association removes
homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. That
same year “ego-dystonic homosexuality,” was added,
which many considered to be simply a new name to
house the same prejudice. Finally in 1986, the
diagnosis was removed entirely.
In 1980, Gender Identity Disorder is added to the list. -
African American Medical Experiments
Mary Alice Relf (age 14) and her sister Minnie Relf (age 12) become victims of the abusive practice of sterilizing poor, black women in
the South. Their mother, who had very little education and was illiterate, signed an "X" on a piece of paper, expecting her daughters, who were both mentally disabled, would be given birth control shots. Instead, the young women were surgically sterilized. -
Hyde Amendment
Hyde Amendment – made it illegal for
federal Medicaid to pay for abortions
except in the case of life endangerment for
the pregnant woman. -
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Developmental Disabilities
Phoenix and Oklahoma City Indian Health Services use DepoProvera
on Native women with disabilities, despite the fact that
it wasn’t approved by the FDA. Reason given was for “hygienic
purposes” – or to stop the periods of patients with
developmental disabilities.
1990’s – DepoProvera is given to women of color in public
health clinics, often without adequate medical information or
consent -
Stop Environmental Sins
Phyllis Glazer forms Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins
(MOSES) to fight a toxic waste facility in Winona, Texas.
MOSES is amongst the first of many environmental justice
organizations created to fight the disproportionate impact of
environmental toxins and pollutants on low income communities
and communities of color. -
Women Infections
Under pressure the CDC adds
women’s infections to the list of
symptoms related to AIDS -
Responsibility & Work Opportunity
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act, punished low-income women
on welfare for bearing children and coercing lowincome
women to marry. -
SisterSong Collective
SisterSong Collective formed to educate women of color and policy makers on reproductive and sexual health
and rights, and to increase access of health services, information and resources that are culturally and linguistically appropriate. -
Proventing Suppress and Punishment
United Nations produces Protocol To Prevent,
Suppress And Punish
Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women And
Children, supplementing the United Nations
Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime -
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Baby Laws
The New York Times reports that Alabama has adopted a new law to prevent children from being
exposed to drugs--in and out of the womb.States begin passing laws criminalizing
women who use drugs while pregnant. -
Consent of underage abortions
Parental notification or consent laws pass
around the country, restricting abortion access
for minors under the age of 18. -
The Ban of Same Sex
Supreme Court strikes down a Texas
state law banning sex between adults
of the same sex in Lawrence and
Garner v. Texas -
Transgender Prisoners
In 2003, several courts ruled favorably towards claims by
transgender prisoners to be entitled to hormone therapy. Courts
have generally recognized the responsibility of prisons to
continue hormone treatment and psychological therapy, in
compliance with the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel
and unusual punishment, which courts have interpreted to
include the deliberate withholding of medical treatment. -
HIV & AIDS
More than 80% of women living with HIV or AIDS
are women of color, and black women are 20
times more likely than white women to contract
HIV. -
Transgender and Gender Variant people
Transgender and gender-variant people, as a population,
are incarcerated at even higher rates than the general
population of African American men, although the
majority of those incarcerated are also people of color.
Despite demands to place them in facilities based on their
gender identity, they’ve been systematically put in prisons
based on their genitalia. -
3 States ban abortion
3 states defeat attempts to restrict or ban abortion – South
Dakota, California, Oregon -
Period: to
7 Black Lesbians
Seven young Black lesbians traveled to the West Village from
their homes in Newark for a regular night out. When walking
down the street, a male bystander assaulted them with sexist
and homophobic comments.The women tried to defend
themselves,and a fight broke out. On June 14th, 2007 Venice
Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson (20), and
Renata Hill (24) received sentences ranging from 3 ½ to 11 years
in prison. -
Women Act
The Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance
Act, or "EACH Woman Act," to ensures coverage for
abortion for every woman, however much she earns or
however she is insured. -
Vice President
Mike Pence is elected Vice-President. Pence introduced the first federal
legislation to defund Planned Parenthood, he signed 8 anti-abortion bills into
law during less than four years as Governor of Indiana, signed a contract to
take money from Indiana's TANF program and give it to an anti-abortion
group.
That's just picking three things—he's done plenty more to limit access to
reproductive justice. -
Reproductive Health Equity Act
Oregon passes the Reproductive Health Equity Act,
expanding insurance coverage on abortion procedures and
other reproductive health services to residents of Oregon
regardless of their income, gender identity, or
citizenship status.
