No Mas Bebes: The Birth Control Movement

During the nineteenth century, white women feminist were demanding access to birth control, they wanted to be in control of their reproduction. In this birth control movement, it lacked the participation of women of colored. There was assumption on why women of color didn’t participate: women of color were fighting against racism or weren’t aware of sexism. In reality, women of colored couldn’t associate themselves to the cause because they exhibit sterilization abuse. In the birth control movement, white women were fighting for abortion right, they were fighting for them to have the decision to either keep or abort a child. While, women of color were forced into sterilization without consent. Women of color didn’t support the “Pro-Choice”

campaign because white women were fighting abortion rights for them, not sterilization abuse against women of colored.
The white race purity must be maintained. Many people used to believe that the white race has inheritable desirable traits that must be maintained and conserve. Therefore, the concept of eugenics emerged, “the belief that the human race could be improved by encouraging the reproduction of those deemed to have inheritable desired traits/genes and discouraging those deemed to have undesirable traits/genes” (Lecture, 5/11). White people have desirable characteristics while non-white people were considered to stain and harm the white population. In order to control people with undesirable traits, they need to control women of color reproduction. This could be achieved through sterilization. Because of the belief of white supremacy, many women of color were forced into sterilization. The Virginia’s Racial Integrality Act of 1924 was a eugenics law that forced sterilization of inmates in prison and psychiatric institutions. (Lecture, 5/11). The government saw these women unfit to reproduce. This was later known as Buck v. Bell. This way, they could control their population from reproduction. Because of these women of color didn’t participate in the “Pro-choice” campaign because the government saw them unfit to control their reproduction which led to sterilization abuse.
Eugenics sterilization was applied to women of color such as Mexican, Blacks, and Native Americans.

In the film, No Mas Bebes, there are a lot of cases where the Hispanic females was forced into sterilization. They will sign an authorization were they weren’t well aware of its meaning since they didn’t know how to speak or read English. Most of them weren’t aware that they couldn’t have babies anymore. In 1973, when Roe v. Wade occurred, the Supreme Court decision for the first time Supreme Court made birth control legal. This meant women have control of their reproduction even the right to have an abortion. Hispanic women didn’t participate in the abortion right moment because the white women were fighting for the right to decide to abort a child. Many of women of color couldn’t have children and they saw that white women were trying the right abort a baby. Therefore, the “Pro-choice” campaign wasn’t a cause Hispanic women could relate to or associate with.
Instead of participating in the “Pro-choice” campaign women of color participated in the “Reproductive justice” campaign. The reproductive justice is a woman of color feminist movement that fights equally for the right not to have a child, the right to have a child and the right to parent their children as well to control birthing options (Lecture, 5/11). The abortion movement focus on white women only and it didn’t focus on the sterilization of women color had to endure. If women of color participate in the “Pro-choice”

campaign they will have to leave behind their race and story about sterilization abuse.
White people were the dominant race because of their physical appearance consider as desirable traits. Anyone who wasn’t white was considered dangerous to the white population. We have learned that race is socially constructed therefore we should learn that no race is above the other race. Because what women of colored endured were because of racism, because they were giving birth to children who are not white.