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Adding to @RBraceySherman's thread:
-Abortions were legal in the U.S. until around the time of the Civil War;
-About half of the midwives up until that time were Black women;
-Drs sought to ban both midwifery & abortions, creating monopolies of wmns' bodies for themselves 1/x https://twitter.com/RBraceySherman/status/1275094468731887617
-Abortions were legal in the U.S. until around the time of the Civil War;
-About half of the midwives up until that time were Black women;
-Drs sought to ban both midwifery & abortions, creating monopolies of wmns' bodies for themselves 1/x https://twitter.com/RBraceySherman/status/1275094468731887617
In the U.S., racism was a significant feature of anti-abortion platforms; Dr. Horatio Storer, Joseph De Lee, and other prominent white gynecologists urged white women "spread their loins" after the Civil War. These doctors successfully lobbied for an end to abortion. 2/x
19th century gynecologists deployed racist & misogynistic stereotypes to push midwives out of their profession & to build a monopoly for themselves. They successfully used abortion as a tool to do so. They falsely claimed midwives were dangerous, unsanitary, & unskilled. 3/x
19th century (male) gynecologists wrote about their insecurities and being teased by male surgeons for doing "women's work." Here's what Joseph De Lee said: 4/x
Likely, it was all the more frustrating and infuriating for men of this new profession "gynecology" to be compared to Black women who comprised over 50% of the midwives in the U.S. prior to the Civil War. 5/x
Male gynecologists leveraged power & influence largely denied to women (including the right to vote) & appealed to the leading medical organizations and legislatures to ban both midwifery and abortions. This was not an altruistic campaign nor abt saving women's lives. 6/x
Instead, the rise of gynecology as a profession was about monopoly and rendering women's bodies in the service of men and their financial and political interests. Even Roe v. Wade, which was landmark, still preserved vestiges of this. 7/x
Today, as people debate whether anti-abortion platforms benefit Black women, the clear answer is NO. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. 8/x
For Black women, the maternal death rate is almost 4x that of white women, nationally and 10x-17x higher in some states. Pregnancy has become a death sentence in the very states that make reproductive health care access the most fraught and hard to reach. 9/x
In the U.S., a woman is 14x more likely to die by carrying a pregnancy to term than to have an abortion. These disparities are further exacerbated when clinics that provide both pregnancy prevention care and prenatal care are forced to close. 10/x
