Abstract

Excerpted From: Kristen Paige Green, Letters to Soleil: Reproductive Reparations as Black Maternal Justice, 112 Georgetown Law Journa1 5l43 (June 2024) (344 Footnotes) (Full Document)

Dr. Shalon MauRene Irving--the proud author of this Twitter bio--championed medical equity. The thirty-six-year-old epidemiologist dedicated herself to “understanding how structural racism, intersectionality, trauma, and violence influence health disparities over a lifetime.” Shalon was an esteemed scholar, advocate, and friend. In mid-2016, Shalon learned that she would become a mother.

As Shalon's extensive “village” prepared for her baby's arrival, Shalon navigated the stressors of daily life. Shalon's relationship ended, and she braced for single motherhood. She grieved two brothers, both of whom passed years earlier. Shalon struggled with career-related anxiety, weight management, and blood clots. Shalon's conditions and previous fibroid removal surgery eliminated her vaginal birthing options, and she scheduled a cesarean section (C-section). Still, Shalon glowed with pride throughout her pregnancy, delivering a healthy baby girl in January 2017. Shalon named her daughter Soleil, for the sun.

Shalon needed postpartum care within a week of delivery. Shalon's blood pressure skyrocketed, and she developed a hematoma. On swollen limbs, Shalon sought emergency medical assistance “at least nine or 10 times in those two weeks.” After ruling out blood clots, Shalon's doctors prescribed hypertension medication and patience. Shalon sought help almost every day, and she was sent home every time.

Three weeks after welcoming Soleil, Shalon collapsed in her home. Four days later, Shalon's family withdrew life support.

Black motherhood in the United States remains the ultimate survival exercise. Since slavery's inception, the state has denied Black mothers the necessary resources to survive pregnancy, delivery, and life postpartum. Chattel slavery relied on systematic forced birthing practices. In the modern day, state reproductive violence against Black mothers takes place through everyday resource deprivation and discrimination. Maternal care restrictions, the overmedicalization of childbirth, and medical negligence endanger Black mothers, regardless of socioeconomic status. Continuing its legacy of reproductive violence, the United States suppresses baseline Black maternal rights to reproductive self-determination. Reproductive violence sustained slave society, and the United States must eradicate its successors.

This Note applies a reproductive justice framework to centuries of state anti-Black reproductive violence. First, this Note outlines the contemporary state of Black maternity, examining hardships in the first one thousand days. Second, this Note defines misogynoir and its slavery-era stereotypes, linking discriminatory tropes to their modern representations. Third, this Note identifies key institutional perpetrators of reproductive violence, highlighting systemic failures to protect Black maternal well-being. Next, systemic and institutional misogynoir are linked to their physiologically deteriorating impacts, exacerbated by historical epigenetic trauma. Finally, this Note presents the Black maternal health crisis as a “badge” of slavery--a gross human rights violation requiring reproductive reparations under the Thirteenth Amendment and international reparations theory.

[. . .]

The day before her planned C-section, Shalon wrote to her daughter Soleil: “You will always be my most important accomplishment .... No words have been created to adequately capture the fear and love and excitement that I feel right now.”

Black mothers deserve life beyond the perinatal period. Black mothers deserve access to culturally competent and quality perinatal care. Black mothers deserve to give birth and recover within supportive networks. Black mothers deserve respect, opportunity, and vitality. Black mothers deserve choice. Black mothers deserve life.

Every moment that the United States denies these rights, it exacts gross violations of bodily autonomy. Reproductive justice policies are necessary to comply with constitutional and international human rights mandates. The longer we wait, the more letters we write.

This is a letter to Shalon.

To Shamony.

To Amber.

To Kira.

To Sha-Asia.

To Black mothers.

Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. 2023. © Kristen Paige Green.