oaks presentation 4-12-17
TRANSCRIPT
ReproductiveJusticeandSafeHavenLaws
LauryOaks,ProfessorandChairUCSBDepartmentofFeministStudies
JointPh.D.inAnthropology&PopulationDynamicsJohnsHopkinsUniversity
Background• Safe haven laws allow surrender a newborn legally and anonymously at a specified location
• First signed in 1999 by then‐Texas Governor George W. Bush
• Implemented more quickly than any other legislation and in diverse states across the U.S.
Methods
Research team conducted qualitative content analysis: 1) newspaper stories2) safe haven advocacy websites and materials & 3) educational campaigns about safe haven policies
Coding/Analysis
• Representations of women’s identities• age, race/ethnicity, class, citizenship, and mental health/social support
• Framing of safe haven issues• mental health, abortion, adoption, teen pregnancy, sexuality education, child abuse, etc.
ReproductiveJusticeAnalysis
• Women’s reproductive decisions are under relentless public scrutiny and judged as symbols of social order or disorder by policymakers, government agencies, and medical experts.
• Brings to visibility: abortion, adoption, mothering politics
SafeHavenLawAwarenessStrategies
• Spreading advocates’ personal inspiration
• Legal change
• School‐based education
•Media
TargetingTeens
• In safe haven advocacy and media stories, teenage, low‐income girls ‐‐ often girls of color ‐‐ are framed as most “at‐risk” of abandoning their newborns
Stereotypesof“AtRisk”Teens
• Silent: stigma for having sex• Denies or conceals her pregnancy• Gives birth alone & unattended• Does not need medical or emotional care
Safe haven laws also work against stigma around teenage pregnancy and motherhood.
Even a teenager “at risk” for “dumping her baby” is capable of safely and responsibly knowing about and having resources to take her newborn to a safe haven site.
“GoodMother”Discourses
• Safe haven laws suggest that good mothers surrender ‐‐ rather than abandon ‐‐ newborn babies they cannot or do not wish to care for
• The good mother is redefined – by the surrender of her status as a mother.
Anti‐abortion&Pro‐adoptionIdeologies
Not always visible, but ever‐present
Social/moral commentary
Reinforce judgments of “good” &“bad” mothers
Social value of the “safe haven baby”
Seeing Safe Havens as RJ Issues
• Poses question that remains unasked & unanswered in safe haven protocols and discourses:
“Why do you feel you cannot raise your newborn?”
• Cuts to heart of assumptions about maternal love
• Points to diverse complexities in women’s/girls’ lives
RJ Conclusions about Safe Haven Campaigns
• Conceal & advance anti‐abortion politics
• Stereotype marginalized women as bad mothers
• Encourage newborn adoption up the economic social hierarchy; outside of established adoption norms
• Transfer visibility away from other interventions that support women and girls faced with a lack of resources during pregnancy and childbirth
Safehavenlawsarenotonlyaboutsavingbabies
“Unwantedness” is not the only or the main factor that leads to safe haven relinquishment
• Financial hardship• Immigration status• Coercion at hospital• Pressure by social workers• Last resort for troubled families
• Unknown: silenced by parameters of the law & stigma
