A historical reality of Gilead
A dire need for a deep evaluation of the status quo and true allyship
**CONTENT WARNING: Pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage**
When I was pregnant with my twins and during maternity leave in 2018, I began watching Handmaid’s Tale. Several people asked me if it was super triggering given my pregnancy/recent birth and to their surprise, I said no. It was not my own recent experience of being pregnant and birthing two babies that caused it to be triggering —- it was the fact that Gilead could very well become reality under the Trump administration.
I have shared since day one of this newsletter that I am here to grapple with my own Whiteness and what it means to be a cisgender White woman doing social justice work to address gender and racial inequities. I admit that my initial fears and feelings in 2018 were missing the mark. Because people of color, particularly women and non-binary individuals, have historically lived in a Gilead reality. Rationally I knew and understood the history in the United States that consists of controlling the reproductive rights and autonomy of BIPOC individuals; however, the fact that I exist in a patriarchal society deeply engrained in White supremacy, blurred that for me as I lived through my own experience as a pregnant person and assessed the references to Handmaid’s Tale leading up to and after the fall of Roe. Although I did not create posters, throw on the red gown and white bonnet, and take to the streets, I acknowledge that my perspective ignored the lived experience of so many. I, like so many other White women, upheld White feminism with this line of thinking.
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
Fast forward to present day and I am horrified at the ways in which we are unraveling decades of progress but also continuing to perpetuate historical wrongs. By now, you have likely heard about Katie Cox, a 31 year old White woman who became the first pregnant person since Roe v Wade in 1973 who had to petition the court for permission to get an abortion. She had to petition this due to being pregnant in the state of Texas where abortion is banned unless conducted to protect the life of the mother.
Cox is 21 weeks pregnancy and seeking to terminate her pregnancy because her fetus was diagnosed with full trisomy 18, which is a chromosomal disorder that causes fetuses to die before or soon after birth. According to her doctors and the petition that was filed requesting the court to grant her permission to get the abortion, the pregnancy “puts her at high risk for severe complications threatening her life and future fertility, including uterine rupture and hysterectomy.” Accordingly, a lower court judge in Texas granted a temporary restraining order on the Texas abortion ban so that her medical providers could conduct the abortion. However, the Texas Supreme Court then stayed that order claiming they did not meet the exception requirements set out in the law. This came after the Attorney General sent a threatening letter claiming the providers could still be prosecuted. Cox has since fled Texas to seek abortion care in a state where it is legal.
Brittany Watts, on the other hand, may not be a name you can easily recall, though perhaps her story rings a bell. Brittany is a 33 year old Black woman who was 22 weeks pregnant when she miscarried into the toilet (a common occurrence among pregnant people who miscarry) and because she attempted to flush the toilet after she miscarried, she is being charged with a felony (abuse of a corpse). Her story was “breaking” around the same time of Katie’s.
In Koa Beck’s book, White Feminism, she talks about how she was writing a story for MarieClaire.com for which she had extensively interviewed a Black woman but her boss informed her that the White woman in a corporate suit sells the story faster. When I read that, I could not help but think of the coverage of Katie Cox’s case compared to that of Brittany Watts. It harkens back to the reality that White women have always been perceived as worthy of motherhood whereas BIPOC individuals have been dehumanized and not only perceived as but quite literally used for forced reproduction. We have a long history right up to present day of criminalizing marginalized pregnant people and those who can get pregnant — the policing of Black and brown bodies cannot be ignored in any and all discussions around reproductive freedom.
I do not articulate this juxta position to discount, dismiss, or undermine the trauma and horrific experience that Katie Cox is going through. It is equally unconscionable. But let us zoom in on the fact that Katie has the resources to flee Texas to seek care elsewhere. Something she absolutely should not have to do but ultimately was able to. Her case was filed (Cox v. Texas) by the Center for Reproductive Rights, a large national organization that is now fundraising off of Cox’s case. From what I can see, they have not commented on the Brittany Watts case whatsoever.
These cases have a lot in common and ring really serious alarm bells as they probe courts to further legislate the fetus personhood issue, a very dangerous slippery slope that if determined to be at conception, will fully dismantle a pregnant person’s right to their own body and has the ability to criminalize all outcomes of pregnancy that are not full term births. We should all be horrified, terrified, and enraged that we are here. Both Katie and Brittany deserve better, they deserve the right to make decisions with their medical provider in a medical setting and should not be forced to publicly discuss or debate their healthcare decisions or uncontrollable outcomes of their pregnancy in any court room.
The entire game being played with reproductive rights right now involves strategies to get key decisions to the conservative US Supreme Court. The goal of those key decisions is to further marginalize people like Brittany, not Katie. We cannot just concede to the fact that Katie is White and experiencing this horrific event due to heinous laws in her home state of Texas so therefore, there must not be any racial disparities at play here. The unbalance coverage and outrage tells me that we are continuing to figuratively do what suffragettes did —- we are pushing the women of color to the back and minimizing their experiences. It is a dangerous status quo to maintain.
Centering the White woman is the quintessential tactic of feminism. For too long, “women possessing money and women possessing power fuse[s] into one overarching story [that is] anchored in the personal stories of the women who [continue] to dictate our mainstream feminist conversations.”1 I think we still have blinders on when it comes to the plethora of issues we are facing today and we need to take them off and really look inward at ourselves and how we are showing up in this moment, who we are listening to, and what we are calling for in terms of change. It is indeed, the brave path forward.
I’ve written about the dehumanization of people of color and the fact that the media just simply does not adequately or accurately talk about the lived experience of people of color, namely women and non-binary individuals. We must call into question continued efforts to maintain that status quo including the limited coverage and outrage over Brittany Watts’ case.
In this moment, as we continue to navigate and remain on the defense blocking and tackling everything anti-abortion activists, attorneys, judges, and elected officials are throwing at us, I am thinking alot about allyship. What can I do as a privileged White woman in a state where thankfully, abortion remains legal (but still inequitably accessible throughout the state)?
Rachel Cargle really articulates allyship best so I won’t try to come up with my own definition, and frankly I shouldn’t. White people should not be defining allyship because it is not about what we need. In a fantastic article about the toxicity of white feminism, Rachel discusses allyship as:
Accepting the reality of this country's dynamics. White skin yields white privilege and an ally is willing to use their privilege to fight with and for those who are marginalized. Allyship means voting for elected officials who have a track record of ensuring the most marginalized among us are heard and advocated for. Allyship means using your sphere of influence whether it be your dining room table or the boardroom of your company to call out racist actions and ideals. Allyship means uplifting the voices and experiences of people of color so that we are not continuously drowned out and ignored.
I have not always showed up and met this standard of allyship. However, it is what I strive for every day and center with intention in the work I am trying to do. I have witnessed my peers, colleagues, and superiors (who are not all White, I might add) equally fail at this. I am most inspired by and drawn to the ones who admit and acknowledge, listen and learn, and seek to do better the next time. For the ones who fail but think they are thriving, I distance myself and question their leadership and power. We all should.
I’ll end with a quote from Katie Fustich’s as it encapsulates the essence of this essay beautifully:
“Fighting for the future of bodily autonomy does not require a costume, and it does not require references to a fictional world inhabited solely by white women. As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction — and the only way to win this fight is to face reality.
Who am I listening to?
[I will try to include some voices that are informing and educating me on the topic of discussion in each post. This list never should be considered exhaustive nor should it be perceived as sweeping endorsements. Further, listing them here does not imply I agree with 100% of what these voices say or represent. Still, it is important that I underscore this newsletter is only perspective informed by a diversity of voices and experiences.]
Weaponizing the Law to Punish People who Miscarriage by Grace E. Howard
The Turnaway Study by Diane Greene Foster
Koa Beck, White Feminism, pg. 113