By Sutton Steensma
This work responds to “Trust Black Women: Reproductive Justice and Eugenics” by Loretta Ross.
When will it be enough for women to decide the fate of their bodies?
With dress, behavior, contraception, movement, parenthood, intimacy, or expression?
The facade of choice has always been monitored and encouraged towards a White supremacist, patriarchal agenda.
We are always made acutely aware of the organs that motivate assumptions and expectations.
I know I have a uterus, thank you.
I know what it is capable of, thank you.
I do not want you inside of me, thank you.
I do not wish to nourish this unwanted fetus, thank you.
I feel like I am speaking but nothing is being heard.
Imagine how our Black sisters must feel, producing rich evidence of pain and tailored abuse from a system crafted to control and manipulate.
Endless evidence of use of female body cavities to achieve power and maintain structures that are rooted in oppression.
The possession.
Who matters in all of this?
Is it the man who just wanted to know what sex would feel like without a condom?
Is it the woman who is imprisoned within her reproductive capacity?
Is it the child born into a family system that is unwanted even before conception?
Or is it the person in the big office chair, lubricating their black pen to sign the paper that determines the choice for bodies that they have never respected, while proceeding to kneel behind a pew and pray to a God that they believe condones their control over bodies.
Autonomy must be granted back to the bodies that experience the implications of narrow laws.
Leverage must be provided to Black feminists who have been engaging in this work for centuries.
Encouraging belonging to all options must be granted for reproductive and parental agencies.
But when?