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Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty is a 1997 book written by Dorothy Roberts.

Overview Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty is a book authored by Dorothy Roberts, investigating the ways in which black women have been systemically denied reproductive rights since the beginning of American history, and how they continue to be denied reproductive rights to present day. Roberts weaves a complex web of political and social forces which disproportionately act on black women to disqualify them as mothers, devalue their bodies, and essentially depict them as a foil to the white woman’s identity. Though racial oppression and reproductive justice are often depicted as separate social issues, Roberts makes the claim that the complexity of racial oppression cannot be understood without a full analysis of the ways black women’s reproduction has been regulated and controlled in America. By placing justice for Black women’s bodies as the focus for policy-making, Roberts theorizes justice for the entire Black community will be inherent.

Chapters:
1.	Reproduction in Bondage This chapter is a critical analysis of the roots of reproductive control over black bodies, which Roberts locates in the exploitation of slave women. Slavery necessitated the regulation of black female sexuality and maternity, valuing the female slave body in terms of profitability. Slave owners utilized slave breeding (Roberts 27) and rape (Roberts 29) to control slave populations and assert dominance over slaves. Roberts introduces the concept of “maternal-fetal conflict,” in this chapter, which is a term used to describe the ways social, political, and medical practices tend to posit the interests of a fetus in opposition to the mother carrying the fetus (Roberts 40).

2.	The Dark Side of Birth Control In Chapter 2, Roberts reveals the close ties between the early birth control movement and eugenics in the 1920s and 1930s, and how their alliance contributed to the disproportionate control over black female reproduction. The author outlines the way birth control developed into a means to solve social problems through racism, and how black women’s fertility became an enemy of the state after abolition (Roberts 56). Roberts also addresses the split in the black community caused by the birth control movement; some members understanding birth control as a means to help family planning, others denouncing it as racial “genocide.” (Roberts 56). This chapter also traces the history of forced sterilization in the Unites States, targeting minority groups and the lower class to theoretically reduce welfare beneficiaries (Roberts 89).

3.	From Norplant to the Contraceptive Vaccine: The New Frontier of Population Control In Chapter 3, Roberts delves into the racist development and distribution of the birth control implant, Norplant, which functions to curve fertility for up to five years by way of suppressing ovulation. Roberts demonstrates how the state has intentionally marketed Norplant towards poor, predominantly black, women, providing economic incentives for patients to have the implantation done (Roberts 108). The discussion of Norplant as a means to control teenage pregnancy in poor communities of color is also included in this chapter (Roberts 113). Roberts includes the medical risk-factors of Norplant, the lack of controlled testing done by the FDA, and the difficulty of getting the implant removal procedure done by a health care provider affordably (Roberts 122).

4.	Making Reproduction a Crime In Chapter 4, Dorothy Roberts analyzes why the combination of crime, race, and reproduction threatens Black people’s welfare and our societal understanding of reproductive justice (Roberts 152). The author discusses specific court cases regarding state attack on “crack mothers” and their resultant “crack babies,” which are portrayed as a menace to national interests. The creation of the crack epidemic in the 1980s gave rise to these caricatures of “crack mother” and “crack baby,” which revives the maternal-fetal conflict ideology introduced in chapter 1; the prosecution of drug-addicted mothers justified as a means of protecting the interests of the fetus (Roberts 154).

5.	The Welfare Debate: Who Pays for Procreation? In Chapter 5, Roberts tackles the issue of welfare, beginning with the racist origins of the welfare system, citing their exclusionary practices with respect to the Black community (205). Roberts also goes through the effort of refuting three common myths about welfare and reproduction, those being: “welfare induces childbirth,” “welfare causes dependency,” and “marriage can end children’s poverty” (Roberts 217). The author asserts that the white population has historically refused to contribute to a welfare system that benefited the Black community, even if that system would help assist the impoverished white community (Roberts 244). The welfare reform systems that cut off assistance for children born to welfare mothers, therefore, contribute to the racist notion that the best way to solve social issues is to curve Black female reproductive rights (Roberts 7).

6.	Race and the New Reproduction In chapter 6, Roberts argues that race also plays a key role in the use and popularity of technologies designed to enable and support reproduction. The technologies which promote family building, such as artificial insemination, are also most commonly used by upper class families, those of which are predominantly white (Roberts 253). The whiteness of new reproductive technologies which enable those incapable of producing a child to do so is curious due to the fact that Black fertility rates are actually much lower than the white population (Roberts 251). Robert’s analysis of the disparity between white and black involvement in these new technologies reveals the continuation of racial reproductive control in the future of reproductive justice.

7.	The Meaning of Liberty In the final chapter of her book, Roberts puts forward her “reconception of liberty” by taking into account the relationship between race and reproduction (Roberts 295). The author combats threats to reproductive rights through considering the Constitution’s guarantees of liberty and equality, as they pertain to Black female bodily autonomy. By evaluating where liberty and equality overlap, Roberts locates where justice can come to serve the dehumanized individual as well as the collectively oppressed groups in society. The author goes on to substantiate the feminist claim that reproductive liberty is an essential aspect of women’s social and political citizenship, and state support to assist poor women’s reproductive decisions is an essential component to obtaining reproductive justice (Roberts 7).

Central Themes:
Regulating Black women’s reproductive decisions has been a central aspect of racial oppression in America. (Roberts 6)

The control of Black women’s reproduction has shaped the meaning of reproductive liberty in America. (Roberts 6)

We need to reconsider the meaning of reproductive liberty to take into account its relationship to racial oppression. (Roberts 6)

Publication History:
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty was originally published in the United States by Vintage Books, and in Canada by Random House of Canada, in 1997. The original copy was in hardcover form. Two decades later, in February 2017, the Twentieth Anniversary Edition was released in paperback form. (Roberts 0)