FAMILY REGULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE CONTROL

FAMILY REGULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE CONTROL

In the United States, systems and methods of reproductive control and family regulation/policing developed alongside and as part of the prison industrial complex.

Public health institutions have contributed to this system by uncritically participating in mandatory reporting or forced drug testing of pregnant people, as well as offering public health models for prevention and intervention that focus on blaming the individual, and fail to prioritize addressing structural problems, such as poverty. Family regulation and reproductive control take many forms, including but not limited to:
Forced and coerced sterilization of migrants, imprisoned people, and Black, Indigenous, and other people of color
Drug testing of pregnant people and their infants 
Medical racism resulting in pre and postpartum inequities in maternal mortality, particularly for Black pregnant people and Black parents 
Shackling pregnant people during birth 
Incarceration of pregnant people and new parents
Family separation through border/immigration control, incarceration, detention, and policing 
Family separation through the family regulation systems (including “child welfare”, “child protective systems”, “foster care”) 
Mandatory reporting to family regulation systems as an intervention “Failure to protect” laws, “fetal assault” laws
Punitive school discipline policies and criminalization of youth (truancy, vagrancy, etc.) 
Resources in this section chronicle from pregnancy to young adulthood, how mechanisms of how family policing systems (often considered child welfare) and criminalization of reproduction autonomy and abortion extend the criminal legal system. When the focus is on surveillance and control, there is a disproportionate impact on Black and Indigenous families, and families caught in this system often end up being criminalized.

Selected Resources

Decriminalization of and Support for Self-Managed Abortion, American Public Health Association
Abortion Decriminalization is Part of the Larger Struggle Against Policing and Criminalization, Interrupting Criminalization
Spotlight on the Foster System Webinar Series, Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Shackling and Separation: Motherhood in Prison, American Medical Association Journal of Ethics
MandatoryReportingIsNotNeutral.com 
Mandated reporters’ experiences with reporting child maltreatment: a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies, BMJ Open
Abolishing Policing Also Means Abolishing Family Regulation, Imprint News
Pregnancy and Substance Use: A Harm Pregnancy and Substance Use: A Harm Reduction Toolkit, 
National Harm Reduction Coalition
Opposition to Criminalization of Individuals during Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Immigration Detention and Coerced Sterilization: History Tragically Repeats Itself, American Civil Liberties Union

Discussion Questions

Current mandatory reporting systems for child abuse often have unintended consequences for families and children that end up increasing exposure to violence, trauma, and criminalization. What are ways that public health systems could ensure support for children and families that do not increase exposure to harmful systems? Try to be more specific than “prevention.” 
Many laws specifically target pregnant and parenting people, such as failure to protect laws and laws that criminalize substance use during pregnancy. How can public health take an abolition-oriented approach when understanding the health consequences for this type of legal intervention into violence and drug-related harm?

Who To Follow

Dorothy Roberts @DorothyERoberts 
Marilyn Reyes @mreyes8176 
VOCAL - New York @VOCALNewYork 
D. Ortiz @Dinahortiz4 
Elizabeth Brico @elizabethbrico 
Movement for Family Power @MovFamilyPower 
Emma Williams @emmapwill 
Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction
National Advocates for Pregnant Women 
Maya Pendleton @mvpendleton 
JMacForFamilies @JMacForFmailies 
upEND Movement @upendmovement 
SisterSong @SisterSong_WOC 
In Our Own Voice @BlackWomensRJ 
Black Mamas Matter Alliance @BlkMamasMatter

For Further Learning

How the Foster System Has Become Ground Zero for the U.S. Drug War 
Forced, Rapid Adoptions Are a Weapon of the Drug War 
Do We Need to Abolish Child Protective Services? 
Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts 
Policies that Punish Pregnant Women for Substance Use 
There’s No One I Can Trust: The Impact of Mandatory Reporting on the Help-Seeking and Well-Being of Domestic Violence Survivors
Belly of the Beast Documentary 
Readings & Resources on Abolition and Reproductive Justice

TAKE ACTION

Sign on to the Health, Healing Justice & Liberation Statement: Statement from Medical Practitioners, Public Health Practitioners, Healers, and Birthworkers condemning forced sterilizations at Irwin County Detention Center and calling for full transformation of health systems to repair the harm and identify three ways you can practice your commitment in your public health work.

Identify your role on Interrupting Criminalization: Resisting Criminalization of Reproductive Autonomy and work to integrate the recommendations into your work.

If you work in a people-facing role, identify tangible steps that you and your colleagues can take to reduce the harms of mandatory reporting and ways that you can advocate to change mandatory reporting policies.