by Comrade Shorn, Black Hammer Member

Like most technology/practices developed in the West… abortion, birth control, and midwifery is a crucial cultural practice throughout the world, far before colonizers “discovered” it.

Whether the doulas of the Bantu people in Southern Africa practicing the first C-Sections in the 1800s, or the Hopi nation of the North American Southwest using the paintbrush herb to prevent pregnancy among tribal women and passed down through spoken history.

Birth control controlled by white power?

Our european counterparts have historically taken credit for most of these medical advancements (which could’ve developed without colonial exploitation, had they focused on anything other than technology that could be used for warfare).

But now that abortion has been “perfected” by the white savior, what should the Colonized masses expect this is service is used for?

The white woman’s rights movement pushed the narrative of abortion being a choice only afforded to the most “liberated” women in the western imperialist and settler colonial nations.

This isn’t without reason. Taking care of a child is often considered to be the responsibility of the woman.

Women who are not prepared to mother a child for the rest of their lives are rendered financially crippled.

Abortion offers the possibility of potentially saving their child from a life of abject poverty.

So, is this article making a moral judgement of abortion being “wrong” because of a “heartbeat that can be recorded at 2 weeks” or “fingernails and eyelashes that are developed in just a few short months” or biblical passages that make abortion supposedly a sin? The answer is a stark no.

If any of these arguments— designed to tug on your heartstrings— convinced you  only “morally depraved whores” could go through with an abortion, consider yourself completely fooled.

These are arguments directed to the white populace from the colonial bourgeoisie, so white women are browbeaten from having abortions and expected to reproduce more white bodies.

The reality is that a fetus has as much of a cognizant mind and will to live as a lamppost or maybe an undercooked chicken. So, what is the real argument that we as revolutionaries should explore?

The hidden issue comes from systemic racism coupled with the practice of birth control.

The colonial question answered

As shown above, the majority of all abortions carried out in the US are practiced on women below the Federal income poverty level.

We, the Colonized, live in a class society of which the class structure of our society is defined by RACE.

A structure of race that is defined by the colonizer and the colonized, the white devil and the criminal savages.

When I look at these figures, I see Black and Indigenous women who’d like to have children, but are coerced into having an abortion based on a class society that controls our everyday lives and decisions.

I think about the women who have an abortion because their partners are incarcerated and know they won’t have the opportunity to care for their children on their own.

I think of the over 25% of Indigenous women that have been subjected to forced sterilization without their knowledge or consent in Klanada.

White leftists ignore history

For too long, white leftists have likened the viewpoint of the institution of Planned Parenthood to an almost apolitical entity, and for this we should have nothing but disdain.

From its very inception, the founders of planned parenthood have actually been upfront withtheir affinity of the eugenics movement since the 1930s, and sought to eliminate “undesirable traits 

in society.” Take the words of Margaret Sanger, who said in 1934:

“I admire the courage of a government

that takes a stand on sterilization of

the unfit and second, my admiration is

subject to the interpretation of the word

‘unfit.’ If by ‘unfit’ is meant the physical or

mental defects of a human being, that is

an admirable gesture”

Is there really a question of whether this institution has its interests in the population control/legal genocide of Colonized and oppressed people?

Is there a question whether there are more planned parenthood offices located in impoverished neighborhoods, meant to target the nationally oppressed?

It’s time that the Colonized people of the settler colonial nations form OUR healthcare system that serves OUR people on OUR terms. By the terms of our right to self-determination and ours alone.

Black Power, Land Back!

Sources

https://www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2017/abortion-rates-income

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/part2.html

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/9214/7612/8734/Sanger_Fact_Sheet_Oct_2016.pdf

https://ijrcenter.org/forced-sterilization-of-indigenous-women-in-canada/