Family Separation and Reproductive Justice

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In this episode Jessy and Rebekah discuss the dangers of city nature – spiders and rats and possums, oh my! – and then get into some more serious territory. As we all know, this administration is monstrous and horrible and made a policy of separating families at the border. Jessy and Rebekah discuss this inhumane policy through the lens of reproductive justice – a framework created by black feminists back in the 1990’s that investigate women’s issues in a way that is much bigger, more nuanced and more inclusive than the reproductive rights framework that is typically relied upon. The ladies then wind it down by reading Jessy’s WTMV Facebook comments. It’s full of hellfire. You don’t want to miss it.

• 0:06: Jessy and Rebekah share an inside joke!
• 00:40: Question of the day: do spiders count as city nature?
• 01:00: So at it turns out there are not brown recluse spiders in New York City. There are, however, yellow sac spiders which are also venomous and their bites can result in painful, ulcerating sores that are slow to heal. Also, they don’t make capture webs so they have to hunt in vegetation and sometimes in homes for prey. Gross.
• 02:00: It was David Arquette and the movie was Eight Legged Freaks, although we prefer Eight Crazy Legs.
• 04:10: Check out The Motherline Story Project by Eliza Simpson here. It’s awesome!
• 06:55: There doesn’t appear to be any easily accessible information about whether women grabbing their own boobs is a sign of luck or something to do with sneezing or if maybe it’s something Rebekah dreamed one time.
• 08:20: You can find a clear and concise definition of reproductive justice by reading the first article in this reproductive justice briefing book entitled “What is Reproductive Justice?’ by Loretta Ross of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective.
• 09:15: Here is an article by Osub Ahmed and Christy M. Gamble of the Black Women’s Health Imperative that defines reproductive justice, explains the difference between reproductive justice and reproductive rights and explains why it is important.
• 10:15: Reproductive justice is “the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic well-being of women and girls, based on the full achievement and protection of women’s human rights.” -Loretta Ross
• 10:50: Here is the article Jessy referenced about Alejandra Pablos and here is another one with more detail about her time spent in detention and the ways she tried to educate the women she was with about our criminal justice system and the something she refers to as “crimmigration,” defined as “the system in which immigrants are funneled into the immigration detention system from the criminal justice system.”
• 12:00: Here is an article for Dissent Magazine by Dorothy Roberts that talks about the ways in which the reproductive rights movement is actually limited by its focus on abortion and choice. Incredibly interesting read. Highly recommended.
• 13:19: You can see Jeff Sessions horrible, disgusting, inhuman statements here.
• 15:40: According to an article in The New York Times, the typical American adult only life 18 miles from their mother. Over the last few decades, Americans have become less mobile and most adults – but especially those with lower incomes or less education – do not venture far from their hometowns once they grow up.
• 16:35: Here is an article from Slate about how the entire immigration system is designed to make it impossible for immigrants to navigate, one from Politico about how the Trump administration is having a hard time reuniting families as the reunification deadline approaches and one from Time about how the administration won’t say how many separated children are still being held in centers around the country.
• 17:00: And this is from when Sessions announced that fleeing domestic violence or gang violence no longer qualifies you for asylum.
• 17:45: Here is a link to a suit brought by the ACLU against the US government back in February for the government’s unlawful separation of the woman and her child – they are being held in two different immigration facilities two time zones apart – after they sought asylum through legal means 4 months previously.
• 19:51: Here is information about the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP). It is so fucked up.
• 22:41: Here is a link to the quotes from Mary Small, the policy director of Detention Watch Network. She is rad. And here is the quote that Jessy read which we think is important enough to be printed here: “With women, we pretend [enforcement policies] are to protect them from the dangers of migrating north. It is very gendered. We treat women migrants as if they’re nt making informed decisions on behalf of their families in light of the circumstances they’re facing in their home countries and the only way to help women understand this is a hard punishment when they arrive [in the United States]. For men, the public narrative is that they are dangerous and need to be deterred from entering the US. The common root of both is that immigrants make poor choices for themselves and their families and they are people not to be trusted. They are dangerous men and hapless women.”
• 24:05: We haven’t read this yet but we read about it. Martha Nussbaum, who is a staff writer for The New Yorker, recently published a book called The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis. We can’t wait to grab it.
• 24:26: Here is the Fox News clip with Corey Lewandowski. It is gross.

Organizations:

• National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
• Forward Together: Rights, Recognition and Resources for all Families
• American Immigration Council
• ACLU
• SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
• RAICES Texas

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