No, Justice Alito, Reproductive Justice Is in the Constitution

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/26/opinion/justice-alito-reproductive-justice-constitution-abortion.html

No paywall
https://archive.ph/F7SOK

Black women’s sexual subordination and forced pregnancies were foundational to slavery. If cotton was euphemistically king, Black women’s wealth-maximizing forced reproduction was queen.

Ending the forced sexual and reproductive servitude of Black girls and women was a critical part of the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments. The overturning of Roe v. Wade reveals the Supreme Court’s neglectful reading of the amendments that abolished slavery and guaranteed all people equal protection under the law. It means the erasure of Black women from the Constitution.

Mandated, forced or compulsory pregnancy contravene enumerated rights in the Constitution, namely the 13th Amendment’s prohibition against involuntary servitude and protection of bodily autonomy, as well as the 14th Amendment’s defense of privacy and freedom.

This Supreme Court demonstrates a selective and opportunistic interpretation of the Constitution and legal history, which ignores the intent of the 13th and 14th Amendments, especially as related to Black women’s bodily autonomy, liberty and privacy which extended beyond freeing them from labor in cotton fields to shielding them from rape and forced reproduction. The horrors inflicted on Black women during slavery, especially sexual violations and forced pregnancies, have been all but wiped from cultural and legal memory. Ultimately, this failure disserves all women.

Overturning the right to abortion reveals the court’s indefensible disregard for the lives of women, girls and people capable of pregnancy, given the possible side effects and consequences of pregnancy, including gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, hemorrhaging, gestational hypertension, ectopic pregnancy and death. State-mandated pregnancy will exacerbate what are already alarming health and dignity harms, especially in states with horrific records of maternal mortality and morbidity.

*snip*

[Wounded Bear]

1. In 1808, importation of people as slaves was banned...

which doesn't mean it stopped, it just became "illegal" and thus harder.

After that, forced pregnancy for breeding purposes was necessary to continue the slave owning culture. To pretend it didn't happen is more anti-CRT bullshit. The "value" of slaves increased from mere workers and servants to breeding stock.

Turning back the calendar to the 19th Century won't fix any of America's problems, it just exacerbates them.

[halfulglas]

2. Even for white women, the US has had a terrible record for maternal complications of pregnancy.

But for women of color it's so much worse. I believe "health insurance" as opposed to health care plays a huge role in that for all races, but most of those stories are for another time, like the length of aftercare in the hospital is determined by how many days the insurance company is mandated to pay, etc. Mostly, I think there is the cultural belief that it's so much easier for certain races to give birth and when they bring problems up, they are dismissed by medical care personnel as malingering, "wanting attention" instead of needing care and addressing real concerns as well as questioning why they hold these beliefs.