Professor Brianna Theobald on Native Reproductive Rights
“Colonial politics remain reproductive politics.”
In the third of a series of conversations on the decimation of Roe v. Wade, I spoke to Professor Brianna Theobald, author of Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century (update: use coupon code 01DAH40 to get 40% off her fantastic book!).
Professor Theobold is an award-winning teacher and researcher focusing on the history of Native America and reproduction. We chatted about the impact of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision on Native nations and how Indigenous peoples’ reproductive rights have long been under attack. Professor Theobald also detailed the organizing around Native reproductive justice that occurred throughout the 20th century and continues today.
A condensed transcript edited for clarity is below. Paying subscribers can access audio of the full conversation here, which is a fair bit longer (I had a lot of questions!). To sign up for free and paid content, click below:
Ben: Professor Theobald, I’m overjoyed to chat with you.
BT: Thanks so much for having me.
Ben: I wrote down 61 questions while reading your book, so maybe we'll get through six of them. To begin, and I know this is way too general, could you please discuss Native reproductive politics before the US government began meddling in the 1800s?
BT: Sure. To your point, the thing I impress on my students on the first day, and then they get sick of hearing it throughout, is that it's really important to understand the tremendous diversity of Native America.
Just in the current context, we're talking about more than 570 federally recognized Native nations. And then there are additional groups that have recognition only at the state level, and there are additional groups who, for various historical reasons, have no external recognition but still identify themselves collectively as an Indigenous nation.
So anytime we're making generalizations, that's important to keep in mind, but this question, what did Indigenous birthing cultures look like? is super important.
In my book, I do a deep dive on one nation, in particular, the Crow or Apsáalooke nation in Southern Montana. In the late 19th century, the federal government forcibly relocated Indigenous plains groups onto reservations, and that dislocation brought with it a lot of changes, including the arrival of a government physician on the reservation.
But at first, Crow women had no interest whatsoever in assistance with medical obstetric care, which they handled in their own ways with their own processes. In Crow, as in many places, midwives oversaw the realm of birthing and child-rearing. They tended to have an apprentice system, where a young woman with these interests might supervise births, and then once she gave birth herself, others would come to her as an authority. Crow midwives had a ton of skills and medicines and techniques at their disposal. And we know that in part because early on in the 19th century, Euro-American observers were commenting on this.
This system persisted through much of the early upheaval of the reservation era. And it's really when we get to the turn of the 20th century when some of that meddling and interventions that you talk about occur.
Ben: So when does the shift away from midwifery on reservations take place? And how is that change tied to the rise of hospitals and the usage of hospitals as a form of forced assimilation for nations across the country?
BT: In the Progressive Era, we see a multifaceted campaign to “Americanize” Native people; a rejection of their languages, cultural practices, and much more.
And with regards to reproduction specifically, the idea was that if we target Native women, target the people raising children, then assimilationist efforts will have long-lasting and disproportionate consequences moving forward. So it was really in the 1910s when there was a more coordinated push for Indigenous women to give birth in hospitals with the assistance of a trained government physician.
Now that's not to say that the transition happens right away, but that's when the government starts to push for the change.
Ben: Going to the 1920s, and to really dark but important subject matter, you detail the history of forced sterilizations of Native women.
BT: Yes, by the late 1920s and 1930s, eugenic ideas had permeated many of the professional classes like physicians and social workers. Their language and goal of limiting the births of “feeble-minded and subnormal” people extended to the government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, which managed reservations.
I first found evidence of eugenics at Crow, and I've done enough research to have good reason to say that this was true in at least four other places as well. Sure, we need a lot more on-the-ground research—
Ben: We believe you at Skipped History.
BT: Thanks. I found evidence first through an interview of a woman who was talking about her own involuntary sterilization, which she alleged she found out about only after the fact. She mentioned encountering other Crow women who had similar experiences. That aspect of the research was a really difficult one because it's similar to how forced sterilizations of Native women and other women of color came to light in the 1970s.
Many women assumed it was their own individual problem, but gradually they recognized it was a larger problem. Government-sanctioned or at least government-ignored sterilizations still occurred in Native communities in the 70s and 80s.
Ben: Truly harrowing recent history, and a harrowing reminder of how much history is likely left to be uncovered.
You write that colonial politics are reproductive politics and connected, in the 70s, to regain sovereignty, Indigenous women felt they had to regain control of their reproductive health, politics, and traditions. How did that movement arise?
BT: Well, in the context of these coercive sterilizations, we have the Roe decision in 1973. We see a lot of energy surrounding a legal right to abortion, and in that environment, we also see the emergence of an activist group called WARN (Women of All Red Nations). Women from more than 30 nations come together, and they had their first meeting in Rapid City, South Dakota in 1978.
They were concerned about more than abortion. Of course, they were concerned about coercive sterilization. They were also concerned about environmental degradation through uranium mining and industrial pollution that contributed to poor maternal and infant health outcomes. They also focused on disproportionate rates at which Native children were being removed from their homes and placed in white foster care or adoptive homes, another issue that was reaching crisis levels. And they were concerned about the discrimination that Native students faced in public schools.
One of the really important takeaways from WARN's work, that's really held in terms of later generations of women's organizing, is the importance of a framework of reproductive justice that shows how all of these issues are connected. Black feminists coined this term in 1994.
Ben: Shout out to Loretta Ross.
BT: Yes! And that moment in 1994 emerges out of histories of oppression of women of color, as well as histories of organizing in the preceding decades. In many ways, WARN advocated and articulated what we can see as an early native reproductive justice agenda.
And look, Dobbs is a really chilling turn for lots of folks and for Indian country specifically. But WARN’s history also helps us recognize that Native peoples’ access to reproductive services has long been hindered.
Ben: It seems to me that, if colonial politics are reproductive politics, the Dobbs decision is a furthering of colonial policies, and that's not even mentioning recent cases like Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta that explicitly limited tribal sovereignty.
BT: Yeah, I think that's right. And I mean there are countless reasons to be concerned about the implications of the Dobbs ruling for Native women. One of my concerns is that restricting access to abortion can stack the decks or push people toward more permanent options; how the denial of choice about pregnancy can have the kinds of coercive outcomes we’ve seen in the past. And given that Native women, like Black women, have disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality thanks to histories and legacies of racism, forcing people to carry all pregnancies to term is a particular concern for Native folks as well.
Also recognizing the lack of protections and the various forces that have resulted in Native women being disproportionately targets of sexual violence relates directly to questions of, among many other things, access to abortion, birth control, and Plan B.
So, yeah, absolutely, lethal colonial legacies endure.
Ben: It sure seems we’re stuck in the past. Is that fair to say though? Like, if you look at WARN’s organizing that's gone on for decades, what is the lesson that you deduce from it moving forward? Whether it be positive, negative, or neutral, what have you?
BT: That's a great question. I basically look at my book as having two strands. One focuses on the results of colonization on Native reproductive lives.
Equally important is how Native communities have organized around reproduction across the 20th century. One example in the Crow nation is a woman named Susie Yellowtail. In the 1930s, she was sterilized without her knowledge. She went on to be a lifelong health activist, and she was active at the same time as the folks who would form WARN. Many of the founders of WARN are still incredibly active on reproductive justice issues today. In other cases, they've mentored folks who are carrying on their organizing in other ways.
So this other legacy of organizing endures, too. Native organizations like Indigenous Women Rising and the Changing Woman Initiative in the Southwest weren’t caught flatfooted by Dobbs. These groups, that are thinking of reproductive justice and women’s health holistically, are really engaged and have a vision and are ready to fight.
Ben: Thank you for that perspective, and for this history. I won't take up any more of your time! I really appreciate you being here.
BT: Thank you so much.