User:Abril.reyes1/Anyanwu

Reproductive Rights
Wild seed brings up many themes that are related to eugenics and the reproduction of people to produce a perfect batch of people with strong abilities. In wild seed, Doro controlled who Anyanwu would breed with and what kind of children she would have. Many times women are denied their reproductive rights and aren't allowed to make life changing decisions regarding what is done to their bodies. When women have disabilities, it's even harder for them to be allowed to have liberty and freedom to decide what is done to their bodies. For example, women with disabilities have been denied the right to choose what kind of contraceptive methods are used on them, they are sterilized without their consent, and forced into having abortions. Octavia E. Butler states in Wild Seed, “He was merely breeding her as one bred cattle and goats. He has said it: I want children of your body and his.” What she wanted meant nothing. Did one ask a cow or a nanny goat whether it wished to be bred?”(Butler,1980, P.132) Doro controlled who Anyanwu bred with and was controlling of her body for the purpose of his eugenics project. Likewise women with disabilities have been deprived of their reproductive rights and are used to control eugenics.

Eugenics
In Wild Seed, Anyanwu was brought into a project of forced breeding or Eugenics by Doro. Eugenics has had a great impact on reproductive rights of many people in the United States. Men and women hospitalized in asylums, or people who were disabled or described as unfit to take care of children were ripped from their reproductive rights between 1907 and 1929 in the United States. These people were often sterilized, men more often because it was easier to perform a vasectomy than a hysterectomy. Anyanwu was many times ripped away from her reproductive rights by Doro. She was not allowed to breed with whom she wanted to. Doro used Anyanwu to breed for his eugenics project, he wanted to have children that were equally as powerful as him. He didn't care what would happen to his children, if they didn't inherit powerful abilities, they were of no use to him. He saw his children without abilities as useless and would take over their bodies as soon as they served their purpose. These people in Wild Seed were controlled by Doro in the same way people in the United States were reproductively controlled into not having children because they were seen as genetically unfit for reproduction.