Photo by iStockphoto.com/danielfela
Reproductive rights are human rights, and our reproductive rights remain under a coordinated attack by local, state, and federal governments. This week, Dawn Wooten, a heroic nurse who was employed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, came forward unveiling the atrocious, nonconsensual hysterectomies performed on detained immigrant women in the custody of ICE.
Forced sterilization is both a staggering human rights violation and an act of state-sanctioned violence.
Let’s face the facts: Forced sterilization is a tool of oppression and white supremacy. The United States has a long and shameful history of oppressing women’s bodies — driven by prejudice and patriarchy – that largely undermines the humanity of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and poor women, and those living with disabilities and mental illness. An estimated 70,000 women were nonconsensually sterilized during the first half of the 20th century in order to dehumanize us and exert control over our bodies— repressing reproductive freedom, choice, and fundamental human rights.
This history of eugenics has a deeply troubling relationship with the environmental movement. Race, population eugenics, and “natural order” were highly problematic features and values of the movement’s—and the Sierra Club’s—beginning. Several early members of the Sierra Club, including Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan, were vocal advocates for white supremacy and eugenics, and as we continue to own up to the darker side of our legacy, it is important that we name the ways in which race and politics have shaped institutional power, culture, and the environmental movement.
These hurtful values persist within the present-day population control movement, touting false arguments that affix the blame for climate change on people’s, especially women’s, reproductive capacities. We reject these values and history. We believe that human rights—including reproductive justice and immigrant rights—are inseparable from environmental justice. Every person has the right to have children, to not have children, and to nurture the children we have in a safe environment, regardless of how long they have been in this country or where they are from.
Our self agency and our bodily autonomy is not up for debate, and yet for the past three years, Donald Trump has only intensified his efforts to oppress and control the bodies of Brown and Black women. From his anti-immigrant crusade, negligent response to a global pandemic, and recent rejection of equity training in his own administration, he has actively fueled hate and white supremacy through his time in office.
The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General must investigate these claims immediately and thoroughly and hold the individuals and detention centers accountable. The story is not about one doctor or one detention center—this is built on a system of racism, misogny, inequity, and gross discrimination. The systemic, cyclical trauma that results from the constant policing and assault against our bodies and minds must come to an end—for the sake of our future and for the future of our collective humanity. We are grateful for the tireless advocacy and leadership of local groups such as Georgia Detention Watch, Project South, SisterSong, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network—as well as the bravery of Dawn Wooten. The environmental movement must center reproductive and immigrant justice in order to fully realize our collective power and achieve our goals.