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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Marsha J. Tyson Darling, PhD, Center for African American & Ethnic Studies, Adelphi University, 217 Harvey Hall, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY 11530, 516-877-4981, darling@adelphi.edu

My presentation will address emerging biomedical protocols that rely on and impact women's reproductive capacity, and how “intersectionality” contributes the most useful paradigm for assessing the diversity of women's identities, and the intersecting marginalizations that trap certain women and girls in situations where they lack access to reproductive justice. I will explore how an intersectional analysis enables us to assess long standing and emerging reproductive rights and social justice issues and challenges regarding the ways technologies are used to marginalize many women and girls. This relates to a pressing challenge within gender equality work, effective human rights interventions, and domestic civil rights enforcements. Class, skin color or “race,” religion, ethnicity, ability, age, caste, sexuality and differences in access to privileges have played a defining role in the lived experiences of marginalized women and girls. The dynamics of intersectionality theory reveal multiple and intersecting marginalizations for many of the world's women of color, as a legacy of racism, colonialism, apartheid, eugenics, population control and involuntary deprivations have been directed against self-determination, privacy, bodily integrity, fertility and reproductive autonomy. This historic problem of women's “intersectional subordination” has serious implications for which reproductive justice issues appear on our “radar screen,” and for our discourses and attempts to provide responsible governance for emerging reproductive and genetic biotechnologies. I will argue that some emerging biomedical technologies pose social justice challenges for distributive justice issues like health equity and equality in reproductive freedom for marginalized women.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, thep participant will be able to

• Frame the relationship between emerging biotechnologies and the use of an intersectional analysis.
• Understand barriers to reproductive justice for many women and girls.

Keywords: Genetics, Women

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation