Denial of Motherhood: An Analysis on Government Regulation of Black Women's Sexuality and Reproduction

Abstract

The purpose of this senior thesis is to examine the implicit racial underpinnings of government polices that work to regulate black women’s reproduction. Drawing connections to past racially influenced government polices, the study demonstrates how black women’s reproductive autonomy has been a frequent target of large-scale government intrusion and manipulation for centuries. Based on this historical precedent, this research aims to show that current government policies operate in a similar way by targeting black women’s reproductive behavior through implicit racism. Using family cap provisions of state welfare programs as a lens through which to analyze this assertion, this study seeks to demonstrate how such family cap provisions work as a contemporary mechanism of institutionalized racism that acts as a continuum of the historical racial bias against black women’s reproductive autonomy.