This is the tenth post in our series on Reproduction and the Common Good: Global Perspectives from the Catholic Tradition. As a reminder, the entire book is available for free download thanks to the generous collaboration between Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church and Journal of Moral Theology. In this guest post, Dr. Taylor Ott responds to the book chapter by Mary M. Doyle Roche, “Rachel Is Weeping for Her Children: Theological Reflections on Reproductive Justice and Maternal Health.”
One of the primary goals of Reproduction and the Common Good, and indeed the point of basing it in a Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church virtual table, is to attend to the intersectional realities of the issues surrounding reproduction. Mary M. Doyle Roche does just that, focusing on the U.S. context, in her chapter. And in doing so, she demonstrates why it is so essential to actually engage with the experiences of Black women in the U.S., who suffer maternal and infant mortality at twice the rate of white women.
As an example of why listening is crucial, let’s compare how the USCCB discusses reproductive justice in terms of race and racism in Open Wide Our Hearts with Doyle Roche’s approach:
“The Church in the United States has spoken out consistently and forcefully against abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, the death penalty, and other forms of violence that threaten human life. It is not a secret that these attacks on human life have severely affected people of color, who are disproportionally affected by poverty, targeted for abortion, have less access to healthcare…. As bishops, we unequivocally state that racism is a life issue.”
USCCB, Open Wide Our Hearts
“Informed by biblical narratives and themes in Catholic social teaching, including the dignity of the person, the common good, and solidarity with the vulnerable, reproductive justice is a comprehensive ethic that lifts up and prioritizes the experiences of Black women and girls.… Reproductive justice includes respect both for autonomy in making reproductive choices and for the relationality that is required throughout life…. The common good entails social conditions that allow people to flourish. The common good is stronger when Black women can make choices to have children, not have children, give birth in conditions they choose with access to the best prenatal medical care, and raise children in healthy environments without fear.”
Mary M. Doyle Roche, “Rachel Is Weeping,” 303.
The bishops sort of get it. They acknowledge the connections between poverty, lack of access to healthcare, and “life issues.” But they also focus on abortion in response to the disproportionate suffering of Black women, rather than taking a holistic approach to health care and social supports. They also perpetuate the myth that Black women are “targeted for abortion.” In contrast, Doyle Roche takes up Black women’s experiences that prioritize both autonomy and relationality, and the history of Black women’s forced surrogacy in the U.S., which leads her to advocate for a common good that includes social supports for raising children, safety for children and women in medical and social senses, as well as advocating for the right of women to choose whether or not to have children. She lifts up the example of several organizations founded by and for Black women that support women in all kinds of reproductive decisions. Doyle Roche and the bishops are both (mostly) white, and are both in dialogue with the Catholic social tradition. But by also being in dialogue with Black women, Doyle Roche comes away with a much fuller picture of what matters for the work of reproductive justice (though as white women, we will always continue to need to listen and course correct).
As Doyle Roche also points out, the “pro-life” political movement has not led to an increase in prenatal healthcare or social supports for mothers and children, nor to a decrease in crisis pregnancies or maternal and infant mortality (301-302). Dobbs has not even managed to lower abortion rates (if anything, it has increased them). And this should not be a surprise to anyone who has been looking at reproductive justice through an intersectional lens. Black women have long been critical of the sole focus on abortion rights that is common among white feminists. A woman deciding to have an abortion simply because she cannot afford to raise a child is not a win. When every pregnant person is afforded the economic, social, emotional, and medical support that provides an appropriate environment in which to raise a child – only then will we truly have freedom of choice.
There are many things that could and should be said about the experiences of pregnancy that are particular to Black people, and Doyle Roche covers many of them in greater detail than is possible here. But what I hope is clear from this post is that intersectionality matters. Too often, we are tempted to view intersectionality like a math problem: racial oppression + gender oppression = double the amount of oppression. But intersectional theory clarifies that when axes of oppression collide, they create something entirely new and different. It is not enough to study patriarchy and racism separately and think that the answers come from putting them together. As ethicists, we must listen to the experiences of Black women – and of Black queer people, and of Latina women, and of low-income women, etc. – to thoroughly understand the effects of misogynoir and other intersecting oppressions on the particular circumstances that inhibit reproductive justice, and to understand how to advocate for reproductive justice positively and fully.
Dr. Taylor Ott is a postdoctoral research fellow at KU Leuven in Belgium where she works as part of a project called “Dissenting Church,” which seeks to theorize the role that dissent plays in building ecclesial community. She earned her PhD at Fordham University. Her first book, titled Conflict and Catholic Social Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Approach, is available from Routledge.
