Читать книгу The Movement for Reproductive Justice - Patricia Zavella - Страница 20

Cultural shift work critiques the discourse about teenage pregnancy that stigmatizes minors who bear children. Reproductive justice advocates believe that unintended pregnancy is the result of multiple structural inequalities that lead to lack of access to contraceptives or educational and employment opportunities that impede women’s full autonomy. Further, reproductive justice proponents prefer to use the term “young parents” and highlight the strengths of families of color rather than blame women for making “poor decisions.”⁷⁷ The need to frame teen pregnancy from the perspective of young women of color is clear, as Madeline Gomez and Sonya Rahders introduced a webinar titled “Shifting the Frame in Law & Policy from Preventing Teen Pregnancy to Supporting Young Parents”:

In recent years, pregnancy and birth rates among young people have declined, but young women of color still experience disproportionate rates of pregnancy and birth compared to their white peers. Additionally, young people that choose to parent are met with social and political stigma and policies that shame rather than support their families and choices. This session illuminates the need for a paradigm shift away from “teen pregnancy prevention” campaigns and toward dignity and respect for expectant and parenting youth, and identifies policies that can make this frame a political and social reality. Participants will leave with an understanding of the “young parents’ dignity” frame, concrete tools and strategies for better messaging, and the ability to identify federal bills and that support young families.⁷⁸

Tannia Esparza clarifies YWU’s critiques of teen pregnancy prevention discourse: “We’re really pushing against the teen pregnancy prevention model that tends to shame and stigmatize specifically young women of color for having children at a young age. That model is really utilizing young parents as scapegoats to avoid having to talk about larger systemic issues like poverty and lack of access to education.”

In order to frame young parents with dignity, reproductive justice organizations take care to represent young parents at moments of accomplishment, such as being awarded their diplomas or completing certification for job training (see plate 6).⁷⁹ Further, in position papers RJ organizations cite research challenging the assumption that young parenthood inevitably leads to poverty, single parenthood, and isolation and instead point out that young parents are more likely to already be living in low-income communities and that their social networks provide resources and social support.⁸⁰ They also critique institutions such as prisons or the immigration system that separate families, including young parents. The Strong Families Network proponents advocate for policies that confer young people’s rights such as access to health care or to an education. CLRJ has a ten-year “Justice for Young Families” project that critiques the discourse about the stigma of teen pregnancy (see plate 7).⁸¹ According to executive director Laura Jimenez, prior to writing the position papers on young families, CLRJ staff members went through a self-reflexive discussion, as some of their families included young parents: “The staff realized, we are going to have to deal with this stuff, which means we are going to have to deal with our own stuff.” The initiative asserts that adolescents who are parents should have the rights, recognition, and resources they need to thrive.⁸²

Jessica González-Rojas explained the importance of contesting the pejorative framing of teen pregnancy:

We fight against a lot of the teen pregnancy prevention rhetoric because it often doesn’t include abortion and it often stops at the point when a woman becomes pregnant. Latinas have the highest teen birth rates in the country, and although it’s going down a lot, it’s still disproportionately higher, and their sexual behavior is not any different than young white teens. So it’s not like they’re having more sex; it’s more that they don’t have access to contraception and all those access issues. So we use a really different frame on our young parents, the perspective that they need support. You need to invest in them and engage them as leaders in the struggle.

Indeed, the pregnancy rate for Latinas who are fifteen to nineteen years old is about twice that of white women in the same age range.⁸³ However, the pregnancy rate for all teens has been dropping. In 2013 the teen pregnancy rate for all fifteen- to nineteen-year-olds was forty-three per one thousand women, which means that fewer than 5 percent of women in that age category became pregnant. In 2016, the US pregnancy rate among all fifteen- to nineteen-year-olds declined dramatically (see figure 1.2): “Although Hispanics still have a higher teen birth rate than their black and white peers, the rate has declined substantially in recent years. Since 2007, the teen birth rate among Hispanics has declined by 58 percent, compared with declines of 53 percent for blacks and 47 percent for whites.”⁸⁴

Figure 1.2. Birth rates per one thousand females, ages fifteen to nineteen, by race and Hispanic origin of mother, 1990–2016

There has been an overall decline in sexual debut among youth, and the rate for Latina teen sexual debut is decreasing as well.⁸⁵ However, improvement in contraceptive use is the primary determinant of the decline in adolescent pregnancy and birth rates.⁸⁶ Clearly the discourse that women of color are having too many babies at a young age reflects the cultural politics that ignore the declining rates of teen pregnancy as well as the importance of addressing the structural issues that impede young women’s access to contraception, education about preventing unwanted pregnancies, and jobs that provide resources that allow them to regulate their fertility.⁸⁷ Lauren Silver argues, “only when our analytical lens includes programmatic and institutional relationships can we fully understand the ways in which resiliency is not only individually located but also constructed within a social system.”⁸⁸

Young Women United developed a critique of deficit thinking that incorporated culture shift work in a recent report, “Dismantling Teen Pregnancy Prevention.” Micaela Cadena, Raquel Rivera, and their colleagues excoriate the discourse—and by implication the organizations that work on teen pregnancy prevention—and push for the human right to access health care.⁸⁹ Specifically, these activists critique the stigmatizing discourse about teen pregnancy that creates several myths. They marshal evidence against the myth that “teen parents are a drain on government resources and cost taxpayers a lot of money.” Instead they argue that most of the estimates of the social costs attributed to young parents are connected to preexisting and systemic poverty. They critique the notion that “children of teen parents often have poor outcomes” by citing research demonstrating that having children at an early age has health benefits and that becoming a parent is often a time of turning toward more social and economic stability. In response to the stigmatizing discourse of “babies having babies,” Cadena and colleagues point out that 73 percent of teenage mothers are over eighteen and thus legally adults in most states and that the adolescent birth rate has declined. They add, “We know that narratives that use young parents as scapegoats for alleged social ills deflect real accountability away from broad systemic issues plaguing our families.”⁹⁰ Cadena and her colleagues conclude, “If we are committed to a bright future for all young people, then we must invest in honest dialog and real change, instead of perpetuating the misconception that teen pregnancy is a problem that must be prevented.”⁹¹ Former executive director Tannia Esparza pointed out, “It’s not just about the policy, right? It is also about the culture shift and the hard work that we still have to do to make sure our communities are not being thrown under the bus.… We had to shape the narrative ourselves, but it was important to back it up with research.” I first learned about this report through Twitter and then saw it posted on Facebook before receiving an email announcement about its release. Clearly the organization’s audience includes young women who use social media.

YWU, in collaboration with other organizations in New Mexico, works on behalf of young parents’ human right to an education, as seen in the organization’s poster of a young parent in her everyday life (see plate 8). It also disseminates representations suggesting that young parents need recognition and social support, and it advocates for legislation that benefits all families. For example, YWU was able to secure legislation honoring teen parents. In 2012, YWU and Strong Families New Mexico lobbied for passage of SM 25, which established a New Mexico Day in Recognition of Young Parents on August 25, the first legislation of its kind. A similar bill, “California Young Parents Day,” was also passed in California in 2016 in a campaign led by CLRJ. YWU also helped gain passage of HB 300 (2013), which created a statewide excused-absence policy for pregnant and parenting students who need to take time to attend doctors’ appointments for their children or themselves.⁹² Further, its recommendations are based on primary research: YWU has conducted its own focus groups so as to understand the experiences and perceptions of young women, and its participants have engaged in self-reflection about their own experiences living and working in New Mexico communities. Its participants are Latina immigrants and US-born Hispanas, Native Americans, African Americans, and whites, heterosexual and non-gender-conforming. YWU has commissioned artwork by local artists, painters, photographers, and musicians to illustrate its campaigns. Tannia Esparza described YWU’s strengths-based approach this way: “We are powerful, and the images that we want to put out are images of strength and resiliency.”

By framing the needs of young families in relation to human rights, the movement for reproductive justice moves away from problematic blaming discourses and holds institutions accountable. In presenting the organization’s work with young parents at a reproductive justice conference, YWU cultural strategy director Denicia Cadena pointed out, “We need to build the narrative before we can change policy.” She elaborated further, “Young Parents Day wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t organized young people and built relationships. We take a long-term approach, use graphic artists to change hearts and minds so people can feel what policy looks like. We built a frame that supports our families.”⁹³ The importance of shifting the narrative about families of color is also seen in the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), which advocates on behalf of Black women.