OCR Text |
Show HONORS COLLEGE SPRING 2013 Kelli Jo Amador 192 GENDERED ATTITUDES IN WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE POLICY Kelli Jo Amador (Vicky Newman) Department of Communication University of Utah The recent attacks on Planned Parenthood, The Affordable Health Care Act, military provision for abortion and birth control, and recent state restrictions on women's reproductive rights have led m e to the following questions: h o w have these attitudes and assumptions about gender affected women's health policies, h o w did the advent of the birth control pill shape these attitudes and assumptions, and w h y do these attitudes and policies still exist? I will track this issue of reproductive rights from the release of the birth control pill in the 1950s to recent policies that restrict and control w o m e n and their bodies. Although reproduction and birth control have always been issues for w o m e n , I choose the birth of the pill because it was a pivotal m o m e n t in women's health choices, and because the legacy and attitudes that began with the pill are still prominent in the construction and control of w o m e n today. More specifically, the backlash associated with the creation of the pill has influenced h o w reproductive health legislation for w o m e n is structured. This work will explore the repercussions of the pill and its legacy. The pill had the potential to give w o m e n the same sexual freedoms as men; backlash associated with realization of this potential began as early as the arrest of Margaret Sanger in 1916 for opening the first birth control clinic, and is as recent as Lisa Brown's barring from speaking in the Michigan House of Representatives for saying 'vagina' in 2012. Such reaction to the pill spread into the scholarly sphere, sparking research at Harvard University in the 1960s to determine whether the pill had an impact on sexual practices by increasing promiscuity a m o n g coeds. My research will involve accessing newspaper archives to determine public opinions about and reactions to the pill; research articles written in response to the pill; and legislative policies and arguments to determine what kinds of attitudes and assumptions are expressed and implied in them. In this thesis, I argue that legislative policies in this ongoing debate are structured around shame, fear, coercion, and control of w o m e n and their bodies. |