Race & Embryo Personhood
Image: Screenshot from Personhood USA video of anti-abortion protesters marching in Washington, D.C.
Writing |
The article "Racial Politics of Frozen Embryo Personhood in the US Antiabortion Movement" published in Transforming Anthropology in April 2019 examines how a branch of the U.S. antiabortion movement uses histories of racist oppression and movements for racial justice to advocate for the legal recognition of embryos as persons. Based on an examination of legal cases, promotional campaigns, and personal narratives from within the white-led movement for embryo personhood, this article argues that the recent wave of personhood activism strategically racializes embryos while erasing legacies of racism that devalue Black life. Read here.
The essay entitled "Jane Doe" examines the seamless interface between antiabortion and anti-immigrant policy through the story of one 17-year-old migrant pregnant girl's legal fight to obtain an abortion while in US custody. Read here. This essay emerged from an inspiring panel of scholars at the annual American Anthropological Association meetings to discuss Reproductive Politics in the Age of Trump and Brexit. Our papers were published in the Openings & Retrospectives section of Cultural Anthropology's February 2019 issue. The entire journal is open source and available to read here -- it's a fantastic collection!
The forthcoming article "Making the Ethnic Embryos: Enacting Race in US Embryo Adoption" will be published in Medical Anthropology in Summer 2019 in a special issue on race and reproduction. This article examines how embryo adoption professionals and participants produce ethnicity as a quality inhering in frozen embryos slated for 'adoption.' It is is an outgrowth of participating in the Wenner-Gren Foundation workshop “Interrogating the Intersections of Race and Reproduction in Medicine, Science, and Technology" in February 2018 where I shared research on race within Christian embryo adoption programs. Link coming soon!
The essay entitled "Jane Doe" examines the seamless interface between antiabortion and anti-immigrant policy through the story of one 17-year-old migrant pregnant girl's legal fight to obtain an abortion while in US custody. Read here. This essay emerged from an inspiring panel of scholars at the annual American Anthropological Association meetings to discuss Reproductive Politics in the Age of Trump and Brexit. Our papers were published in the Openings & Retrospectives section of Cultural Anthropology's February 2019 issue. The entire journal is open source and available to read here -- it's a fantastic collection!
The forthcoming article "Making the Ethnic Embryos: Enacting Race in US Embryo Adoption" will be published in Medical Anthropology in Summer 2019 in a special issue on race and reproduction. This article examines how embryo adoption professionals and participants produce ethnicity as a quality inhering in frozen embryos slated for 'adoption.' It is is an outgrowth of participating in the Wenner-Gren Foundation workshop “Interrogating the Intersections of Race and Reproduction in Medicine, Science, and Technology" in February 2018 where I shared research on race within Christian embryo adoption programs. Link coming soon!