Informing Red Power and Transforming the Second Wave: Native American women and the struggle against coerced sterilization in the 1970s
2016; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 25; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09612025.2015.1083229
ISSN1747-583X
Autores Tópico(s)Feminist Theory and Gender Studies
ResumoABSTRACTIt is argued that despite formidable foes—including powerful feminist organizations and Native American rights groups—Indigenous women's activism had an important influence on the larger movement for the termination of sterilization abuse in 1970s USA. Their work highlighted coerced sterilization as a most agonizing example of compromised tribal sovereignty—and demanded that political leaders address it. The article describes the tangible achievements of these women in effecting federal regulations as well as their influence on mainstream American feminist ideology and Indian Country's interpretation of women's rights as sovereign ones. Notes on contributorMeg Devlin O'Sullivan is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and History at The State University of New York at New Paltz. Her publications in the Chronicles of Oklahoma and the Tennessee Historical Quarterly look at gender, work, and cultural identity in the Cherokee Nation during the nineteenth century.Notes1. Kris Melrose (1979) Interview of Native American Solidarity Committee with Pat Bellanger, Lorelei Means, and Vicki Howard, CARASA News, 3(8) (October). Reprint: OFF OUR BACKS, 9(5) (May 1979), Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.2. Ibid.3. Ibid., p. 19; In speeches from 1977 to 1979, President Jimmy Carter emphasized the United States' energy needs and his intentions to meet them: 'Report to the American People on Energy' (February 2, 1977); 'Address to the Nation on Energy' (April 18, 1977); 'Address to the Nation on Energy' (November 8, 1977); and the 'Crisis of Confidence Speech' (July 15, 1979) http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/index.phtml (accessed September 8, 2006).4. Jennifer Nelson (2003) Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement (New York: New York University Press); Marlene Gerber Fried (Ed.) (1990) From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom: transforming a movement (Boston: South End Press); Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena Gutierrez (Eds) (2004) Undivided Rights: women of color organize for reproductive justice (Boston: South End Press); Linda Gordon (1990) Woman's Body, Woman's Right: birth control in America (New York: Penguin); Benita Roth (2004) Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and white feminist movements in America's second wave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Willie Mae Reid (1976) Black Women's Struggle for Equality (New York: Pathfinder Press); Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (Ed.) (1995) Latina Issues: fragments of historia (ella) (herstory) (New York: Garland).5. For more on the connection between social justice issues, Indigenous women, and sovereignty see: Devon Mihesuah, (2003) Indigenous American Women: decolonization, empowerment, activism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press); Elizabeth A. Castle (2003) Keeping One Foot in the Community: intergenerational Indigenous women's activism from the local to the global (and back again), American Indian Quarterly, 24(3–4), pp. 840–860; and Justine Smith (1999) Native Sovereignty and Social Justice: moving toward an inclusive framework, in Jael Silliman & Ynestra King (Eds) Dangerous Intersections: feminist perspectives on population, environment, and development, a project of the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment (Cambridge, MA: South End Press), pp. 202–213.6. Danielle McGuire (2010) At the Dark End of the Street: Black women, rape, and resistance—a new history of the Civil Rights movement from Rosa Parks to the rise of Black Power (New York: Vintage).7. For more on the history of eugenics and sterilization in the United States see: Alexandra Minna Stern (2005) Eugenic Nation: faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press); Dorothy Roberts (1997) Killing the Black Body: race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty (New York: Pantheon); Philip J. Reilly (1991) The Surgical Solution: a history of involuntary sterilization in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press); Stephen Trombley (1988) The Right to Reproduce: a history of coercive sterilization (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson); Thomas M. Shapiro (1985) Population Control Politics: women, sterilization, and reproductive choice (Philadelphia: Temple University); Robert H. Blank (1991) Fertility Control: new techniques, new policy issues (New York: Greenwood Press); Harry Bruinius (2006) Better For All The World: the secret history of forced sterilization and America's quest for racial purity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf); Sana Loue & Beth E. Quill (Eds) (2001) Handbook of Rural Health (New York: Kluwer /Plenum); Edward J. Larson (1995) Sex, Race, and Science: eugenics in the Deep South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press); J. David Smith (1993) The Eugenic Assault on America: scenes in red, white, and Black (Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press); and Wendy Kline (2001) Building a Better Race: gender, sexuality, and eugenics from the turn of the century to the Baby Boom (Berkeley: University of California Press).8. Blank, Fertility Control, p. 57.9. Blank, Fertility Control, p. 58; Reilly, The Surgical Solution, p. 1.10. Trombley, The Right to Reproduce, pp. 35–36.11. During the early twentieth century, medical professionals used the terms 'feebleminded' and 'imbecile' to describe an individual who appeared to lack in intelligence. Some doctors and eugenicists found the 'feebleminded' particularly threatening because they appeared healthy but imperceptibly harbored and passed on inferior genes. In the 1920s, the American Eugenics Society created exhibits for display at state fairs and expositions. The 1926 Sesqui-Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia showcased an AES display, 'Some People are Born to be a Burden on the Rest.' According to the exhibit, people with 'bad heredity' were born every sixteen seconds as opposed to those with 'high-grade inheritance' who were born every seven and a half minutes. Steven Selden (1999) Inheriting Shame: the story of eugenics and racism in America (New York: Teachers College Press), pp. 23–24.12. Trombley, The Right to Reproduce, p. 55.13. Rebecca M. Kluchin argues that the demise of the early twentieth-century eugenics movement did not result in the end of eugenic practices in the United States. Rather, in the post-war era the efforts of the early twentieth century gave way to 'neo-eugenics' that focused on the coerced sterilization of poor American women. Rebecca M. Kluchin (2004) Fit to be Tied?: sterilization and reproductive rights in America, 1960–1984 (PhD dissertation, Carnegie Mellon), p. 18.14. Population Control Council, 1952–1964, Twelve Year Report, Revised Draft, March 15, 1964, Population Council Collection, Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, New York (hereafter Population Control Council, Twelve Year Report).15. Ralph B. Potter (1977) The Population Debate: the logic of the Ecology movement, in Robert M. Veatch (Ed.) Population Policy and Ethics: the American experience (New York: Irvington), p. 348.16. Population Control Council, Twelve Year Report17. Ibid.18. Kristin Amory (2003) The Privilege of Motherhood: sterilization of American Indian women during the 1970s, High Plains Applied Anthropology, 23(2), pp. 130–141. Nixon appointed Rockefeller to head the Commission on Public Growth and the American Future. At the same time, the United Nations made plans to name 1974 'world population year' to address issues of overpopulation. See: Veatch, Population Policy and Ethics, p. 1.19. National Women's Health Network (1980) Sterilization: Resource Guide 9 (Washington DC: National Women's Health Network), pp. 70–71 (hereafter Sterilization: Resource Guide 9).20. Robert M. Veatch (1977) An Ethical Analysis of Population Proposals, in Veatch (Ed.), Population Policy and Ethics, pp. 445, 465.21. Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement, p. 69.22. Mayone J. Stycos (1977) Some Minority Opinions on Birth Control, in Veatch (Ed.), Population Policy and Ethics, p. 173.23. Silliman et al. (Eds), Undivided Rights, p. 9.24. Jane Lawrence (1999) Indian Health Service: sterilization of Native American women, 1960s–1970s (Master's thesis, Oklahoma State University), p. 6.25. Amory, 'The Privilege of Motherhood,' p. 3.26. Sally Torpy (1998) Endangered Species: Native American women's struggle for their reproductive rights and racial identity, 1970s–1990s (Master's thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha), p. 19.27. Shapiro, Population Control Politics, p. 6.28. Lawrence, Indian Health Service, p. 13.29. Amory, 'The Privilege of Motherhood', p. 3.30. Dwight J. Ingle (1973) Who Should Have Children? An Environmental and Genetic Approach (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill), p. xii.31. Ingle also embraced an older understanding of heredity that argued that those who possessed biological 'deficiencies' should not procreate.32. Ingle, Who Should Have Children?, p. 94.33. Ibid., p. 98.34. Blank, Fertility Control, p. 62.35. Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement, 92–93.36. Brett Lee Shelton (2001) Legal and Historical Basis of Indian Health Care, in Mim Dixon & Yvette Roubideaux (Eds) Promises to Keep: public health policy for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 21st century (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association).37. Mathew Snipp (2000) Selected Demographic Characteristics of Indians, in Everett R. Rhoades (Ed.) American Indian Health: innovations in health care, promotion, and policy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), p. 54.38. Amory, 'The Privilege of Motherhood'; Alvin M. Josephy, Jr, Joanne Nagel & Troy Johnson (Eds) (1999) Red Power: the American Indians' fight for freedom (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books), pp. 53–54.39. 'The War on Poverty Continues,' NCAI Bulletin, 10(2A) (Summer 1965).40. The 1976 Indian Healthcare Improvement Act allowed Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for IHS treatments. Amory, 'The Privilege of Motherhood', p. 4; Thomas Clarkin (2001) Federal Indian Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, 1961–1969 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press).41. Emery A. Johnson & Everett R. Rhoades (2000) The History and Organization of Indian Health Service and Systems, in Rhoades (Ed.) American Indian Health, pp. 74–92, 77.42. US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Health Service Administration, Indian Health Services (1978) The Indian Health Program of the U.S. Public Health Service (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office), p. 21.43. Ibid., p. 19.44. US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service (1969) The Indian Health Program of the U.S. Public Health Service (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office), p. 1.45. CARASA News, 3(8) (October 1979), p. 20. Reprint from Askwesasne Notes, May 1979, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.46. Amory, 'The Privilege of Motherhood,' p. 9.47. Blank, Fertility Control, p. 26.48. Congressional Record. Proceedings and Debates of the 95th Congress, First Session, Vol. 123–Part 130, December 6 to December 15, 1977, 39386.49. Gena Corea (1973) The Hidden Malpractice: how American medicine treats women as patients and professionals (New York: Morrow), pp. 180–181.50. Ibid.51. Robert M. Veatch & Thomas Draper (1977) The Values of Physicians, in Veatch (Ed.), Population Policy and Ethics, p. 377.52. Women and the Healthcare System: two lectures by Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias (New York: The Women's Center, Barnard College, 1978), p. 2.53. Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates of the 95th Congress, First Session, Vol. 123–Part 30, December 6 to December 15, 1977, 39383.54. 'Theft of Life,' in Akwesasne Notes (September 1977), p. 30.55. Ibid., p. 30.56. 'Killing Our Future,' in Akwesasne Notes (Early Spring 1977), p. 4.57. Brint Dillingham (1977) Sterilization of Native Americans, American Indian Journal, 3(7), (Washington DC: Institute for the Development of Indian Law), pp. 16–19; Andrea Smith (2005) Conquest: sexual violence and American Indian genocide (Boston: South End Press), pp. 81–83.58. 'Killing Our Future,' p. 6.59. Ibid., p. 4; Smith, Conquest, p. 82. For more on Senator James Abourezk see his autobiography: James Abourezk (1989) Advise and Dissent: memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books).60. American Indian Studies Center, University of Los Angeles, California (1979) New Directions in Federal Indian Policy: a review of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, (Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, UCLA), p. 7.61. Elmer B. Staats, Comptroller General. Report to Senator James Abourezk. Investigation of Allegations Concerning Indian Health Service. 'Letter to Senator James G. Abourezk (Chairman of subcommittee on Indian Affairs) from the Comptroller General of the United States Presenting the Findings of General Accounting Office,' November 4, 1976, p. 1.62. Ibid., pp. 3, 4.63. Ibid., pp. 4, 19, enclosure 1. The extant HEW regulations for federally-funded sterilizations had banned the sterilization of anyone under twenty-one years, prohibited the sterilization of the mentally incompetent without their informed consent, demanded a seventy-two-hour waiting period for all sterilizations as well as written communication to the patient receiving the sterilization that she could keep her federal benefits if she declined the operation. (Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement, p. 141.)64. Investigation of Allegations Concerning Indian Health Service, 19, enclosure 1. 5.65. 'An Interview with Barbara Moore,' Akwesasne Notes (Spring 1979), p. 11.66. Ibid.67. Mary Crow Dog & Richard Erdoes, (1991) Lakota Woman (New York: Harper Perennial), p. 166.68. 'Killing our Future,' p. 6.69. 'Serena Wins Half-a-Battle,' Akwesasne Notes (Late Winter, 1979).70. Jane Lawrence (1999) Indian Health Service: sterilization of Native American women, 1960s–1970s (Master's thesis, Oklahoma State University), pp. 97–98, 102–104, 99–100.71. Stern, Eugenic Nation, p. 203.72. 'Marie Sanchez: for the women,' in Akwesasne Notes, 9(5) (December. 1977), p. 14. The United Nations defined genocide in 1948 as 'action committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.' Robert Melson (1992) Revolution and Genocide: on the origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), p. 23.73. 'Marie Sanchez: for the women,' p. 14.74. Emily C. Moore (1971) Native American Indian Values: their relation to suggested population policy proposals (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY: Commission on Population Growth and the American Future). Moore used a small representative sample to conclude that a majority of Native Americans were against governmental efforts to control the population. They represented the following tribes: Passamaquoddy, Iroquois, Tewa, Navajo, Hupa-Karok-Yurok, Kiowa, Cherokee, Comanche, Tonawanda Seneca, Lumbee, Oglala Sioux, Cheyenne River Sioux, and Hassanamisco-Narragansett.75. New Directions in Federal Indian Policy: a review of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, pp. 7, 1–2, 16, 21, 26.76. American Indian Policy Review Commission, Final Report, submitted to Congress May 17, 1977 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977).77. New Directions in Federal Indian Policy: a review of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, p. 39.78. Thomas W. Cowager (1993) The National Congress of American Indians: the founding years. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), p. 3.79. Gary Orfield (1960) A Study of the Termination Policy (Denver: The National Congress of American Indians); American Friends Service Committee (1967) An Uncommon Controversy: an inquiry into the treaty-protected fishing rights of the tribes of the Northwest Coast (N.P.: National Congress of American Indians); 'Welcome NCAI 1970: Convention and Post Convention Issue: from the North, the Aleuts, the Eskimos, the Indians,' in The Sentinel: National Congress of the American Indians (Washington DC: National Congress of American Indians, 1971).80. Elizabeth A. Castle (2001) Black and Native American Women's Activism in the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (PhD dissertation, Cambridge University), p. 87.81. 'You and NCAI,' in National Congress of American Indians Bulletin, (July–August 1962), p. 2.82. Russell Means & Marvin J. Wolf (1995) Where White Men Fear to Tread: the autobiography of Russell Means (New York: St Martin's Press), pp. 364, 378.83. Ibid., p. 265.84. Women of Color Partnership Project, Synopsis of Native American Dialogue, June 5–6, 1987, Denver, Colorado, 1–4, Series 5: NCAI Committees and Special Issues—Health and Welfare, Women's Health and Reproductive Issues, Misc. Papers, 1986–1987, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.85. Silliman et al., Undivided Rights, p. 114.86. Susan E. Davis (Ed.) (1988 Reprint) Women Under Attack: victories, backlash, and the fight for reproductive freedom, Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse, Pamphlet No. 7 (Boston: South End Press), p. 2887. Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement, p. 136.88. The National Women's Health Network organized in 1974.89. Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement, p. 135.90. 'Sterilization Abuse: mobilizing grassroots groups to monitor local hospitals,' proposal submitted to the Stern Fund by the National Women's Health Network, January 1979, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.91. Ibid.92. The full advisory committee included: Pam Horowitz (Chase Morgan and Associates), Karen Stamm (CESA), Gloria Lopez (Chicana Nurses Ass. of LA), Esta Armstrong (NYS Health and Hospitals Corp.), Byllye Avery (NWHN, Gainesville, FL), Vicki Jones (Center for Disease Control, Atlanta), Rayna Green (Program on Native Americans in Science/AAAS), Connie Uri (Indian Women United for Justice), and Marie Sanchez (tribal judge).93. 'Sterilization Abuse: mobilizing grassroots groups to monitor local hospitals.'94. Sterilization: Resource Guide 9, pp. 7, 9.95. United States Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the 95th Congress, Second Session, Vol. 124–Part 6, March 14–22, 1978 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 6908.96. 'Policies of General Applicability: provision of sterilization in federally assisted programs of the Public Health Service,' Federal Register, Vol. 43, No. 217, November 8, 1978 (Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Supt. of Docs, US GPO), p. 52146.97. Ibid, p. 52166.98. Ibid., p. 52159.99. United States Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the 95th Congress, Second Session, Vol. 124–Part 6, March 14–22 1978, p. 6908; Ibid., p. 52166.100. Suzanne Staggenborg (1991) The Pro-Choice Movement: organization and activism in the abortion conflict (New York: Oxford University Press); Rickie Solinger (Ed.) (1998) Abortion Wars: a half century of struggle, 1950–2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press); Beverly Wildung Harrison (1983) Our Right to Choose: toward a new ethic of abortion (Boston: Beacon Press); Rosalind Pollack Petchesky (1985) Abortion and a Woman's Choice: the state, sexuality, and reproductive freedom (Boston: Northeastern University Press); Kristin Luker (1984) Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (Berkeley: University of California Press).101. Letter from Elisa Sanchez, President of MANA to Belita Cowan, Executive Director of NWHN, January 19, 1979. 'Sterilization Abuse: mobilizing grassroots groups to monitor local hospitals.'102. For more on how race and class informed the experience of women in the United States with birth control see: Johanna Schoen (2005) Choice and Coercion: birth control, sterilization, and abortion in public health and welfare (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press).103. 'Concerns of American Indian Women,' Woman hosted by Sandra Elkin, WNED-TV, Buffalo, New York, April 15, 1977.
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