Conclusion

Historically, family-planning clinics, most notably Margaret Sanger’s racially discriminatory institution or Planned Parenthood, were strategically placed in impoverished neighborhoods typically populated by minority groups such as African Americans and Latinos. The placement of such abortion clinics was done purposefully by leaders of reproductive freedoms in order to monitor, control, and hinder the rate of reproduction of populations that were seen as “genetically inferior” to the White race. Theories held by Mendel and Galton pertaining to genes and inheritance claimed that the transmission of genes from parent to offspring was an unchangeable, immediate process that determined one’s genetic-makeup. Social properties such as illiteracy and poverty were also perceived as being directly linked to an individual’s genetic being, which thus motivated scientists and physicians such as Sanger to attempt to deter the expansion of minority groups through forced sterilization. Cases such as Buck v. Bell and Relf v. Weinberger exemplified the racism that was held within the very foundation of Planned Parenthood by presenting real-life racist instances that involved Black women being coercively sterilized without their consent. Forced or rather “volunteered” uses of sterilization, which was presented in historical studies such as the “Negro Project,” attempted to conceal the desires held by individuals such as Sanger in completely exterminating the “Negro population.” Black women, such as Nial Ruth Cox, were constantly forced to forfeit their reproductive rights for fear of not retrieving fair welfare assistance that were afforded to their White female counterparts. While the theoretical concept and biological movement of eugenics as a genetic study was largely discredited by the scientific world, its implications remain very real and explicit in the present day. The construction of the African American female body was initially perceived as a commodity to the White man, but after the abolition of slavery, Black women and their offspring were seen as economic burdens on the United States welfare system. Black reproduction itself became synonymous with the degeneracy of humankind and a threat to the notion of White hegemony. It was held evident that the progression of humanity was only possible through the extermination of society’s weakest links: the "Negro population." Media-based representations of African American women in the present still perpetuate social stereotypes of African American women as unfit mothers, “welfare queens,” and promiscuous subhumans. A particularly salient example from 2009 is the film Precious that depicts the tale of a young, pregnant African American woman living in poverty and supported by governmental assistance. This film, in particular, provides a representation of how African American women are continuously constructed under a hyper sexualized lens within society. Not only are the stereotypes of Black women still perpetuated through the media, they are also overly represented in the practices held by current community-based clinics. For instance, in New York City, there is billboard that indicates that the “most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” Representations such as these directly discourages African American communities from reproducing by crudely and severely over-emphasizing the rate of abortions that are held within such groups of individuals. In order to properly address these discriminating, structural problems and the glaring and expanding racial inequalities that exist within the modern day, society must seek not to create and enforce racial boundaries and differences between people but directly address social prejudices, stereotypes, and inequalities.