Dorothy Roberts is the Kirkland and Ellis Professor at Northwestern University School of Law, with joint appointments in
the departments of African American studies and sociology as a faculty fellow of the Institute for Policy Research and as a faculty
affiliate of the Joint Center for Poverty Research. Professor Roberts is currently conducting research on the state supervision of
children in African American communities.
Roberts's work on reproduction has made her acutely aware of stratified reproduction in the United States.
Technologies and fertility clinics primarily assist white middle-class women and avoid granting the same privilege
to African American women. States Roberts, "The race and class dimensions of who is in power to reproduce, who is discouraged from reproducing in the
U.S., are absolutely clear. Poor and minority women are the primary objects of welfare reform measures designed to discourage
childbearing, and they use fertility treatments at lower rates than the more privileged women."
Says Roberts, "Rather than place these categories of women in opposition, I want to explore how the privatization and punishment of
reproduction links them together to avoid public responsibility for the social inequities. Both population control and fertility
enhancement selection technologies" reinforce biological explanations for social problems and place reproduction duties on women that
shift responsibility for improving social conditions away from the state.
Roberts explains, "Poor black women are especially
vulnerable to proposals to punish childbearing." The view of black women as irresponsible reproducers is deeply embedded in American
culture, but it is "all based on faulty or nonexistent medical evidence." Stereotypes of black female maternal irresponsibility support
welfare reform and policies to regulate black women's sexual and childbearing decisions.
Because the U.S. government has reduced support for families and increased state intervention for poor women, it
seems clear that welfare "is no longer a system of aid, but a system of behavior modification to regulate sexual and childbearing
decisions of poor" mothers. There is also increased pressure for mothers to produce perfect babies. "Some users of reproductive genetics
have even claimed moral superiority over women who have abortions for nonselective reasons," presenting a "perverse moral distinction
between 'ordinary' and so-called 'medical' abortion."
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