File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9801, message 530


Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:06:29 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: Abortion, Slave Resistance, and Dumain's Planter Mentality


Linda Gordon, in her book <italic>Women's Body, Women's Right: A Social
History of Birth Control in America</italic>, writes:


"Abortions through internal medicine were not attempted only by
professionals. Folk remedies for unwanted pregnancies were common. Even
men knew them, or how to get them....Slaves practiced abortion
commonly. An antebellum doctor wrote that it was four times as frequent
among blacks as among whites, and that 'all country practitioners are
aware of the frequent complaints of planters from this subject'
<smaller>30</smaller> Though the doctor may have been underestimating
the prevalence of abortion among whites, it seems at least possible
that the rather exceptionally unpleasant conditions of child-raising
for slave women might have made them reluctant to bear children.*"
(Gordon 54)


30. Dr. E. N. Pendleton, "On the Susceptibility of the Caucasian and
African Races to the Different Classes of Disease," in <italic>Southern
Medical Reports</italic> 1 (1849): 338.


* Indeed, if the doctor's figures are true, one would be practically
forced to entertain the possibility that abortion among slaves was not
only a tool of self-preservation, but also a form of
<italic>resistance</italic>. (emphasis mine)


****************************************


It is important to recognize and validate the emphasis on community
responsibilities for child-rearing among African Americans. However, it
is patently ridiculous to make use of this fact in order to insinuate
that it is contempt for motherhood that motivates the advocates of
women's reproductive choices and freedoms to defend the right to
abortion. Moreover, as the above example and many other historical
documents show, African American women have resisted being used as
"breeders" for planters and they (as well as other women) have
struggled for their self-determined control over their
bodies--including abortion--while resisting the "population control"
that negates their right to have children when they want to. Dumain
says: "Nor do I intend to validate the residues of the slave mentality
that prompts ignorant teenage girls to crank out babies at an alarming
rate in an age where birth control is practicable." Such words as
"cranking out babies at an alarming rate" is straight out of racist,
sexist, and anti-working class imagination of eugenicist literature.


Yoshie


****************************************


Ralph Dumain wrote:

>Leo's performance of late has been pretty sad, but his latest message
is

>pure gold:

>

>At 09:03 PM 1/23/98 EST, LeoCasey wrote:

>>The fact of the matter is that working class women procrastinate

>>over abortion precisely because it is, for virtually all of them, a
moral

>>issue. A fetus is not, for them, human life, but it is potential
life, and

>>they give it a respect that they would not accord other pieces of
body tissue.

>>Frankly, this is precisely why I think that the pro-choice argument
is

>>especially persuasive -- given the range of possibilities of whom
could make

>>that decision, the woman is far more likely to make the decision with
care and

>>responsibility than any other decision-maker.

>

>This could not be better put.  I suspect Leo, in this instance, has a
lot

>more understanding of the working class than some of the feminazi

>psychopaths on this list.  Hear that, Carrol Cox, you turd?  

>

>Leo's comment about working class women prompts me to bring up now a
subject

>I had put later in my queue: the subject of African American women. 
Who

>knows the unfair and disproportionate burdens heaped up on them better
than

>they?  The idea that children should not be born because life is hard
is

>ludicrous from the vantage point of this experience.  The firmly
ingrained

>tradition of taking in kids not one's own--adoption, foster
parenting-- and

>of sending one's own kids all over the place to live with relatives
if

>things get out of hand--the practical extended community support
system that

>the likes of Daniel Moynihan never knew--this is a historical coping

>mechanism that is both practical and humane.  It suggests something
about

>the value of human life under conditions in which such life is held to
be

>worthless in the eyes of mainstream society that you had best think
about if

>you really believe in the freedom about which you so facilely
fatmouth.  I

>don't mean this as an argument against abortion at all.  Nor do I
intend to

>validate the residues of the slave mentality that prompts ignorant
teenage

>girls to crank out babies at an alarming rate in an age where birth
control

>is practicable.  Nor do I romanticize motherhood or self-sacrifice.  I
think

>we should be for self-determination in every sense, esp. when we see
the

>deletirious psychological and societal consequences of the lack of it.
 But

>as cynical as I am about much of human behavior, including breeder
behavior

>and the slave mentality, nothing matches the misanthropic cynicism
and

>contempt for parenthood exhibited by misfits like Yammering Yoshie,
Carroll

>Coxucker, and Mental Malecki.  Let's just hope these vermin don't ever
have

>children of their own or get any political power.

>

>

>

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