Abortion bans are oppressive and dehumanizing and dangerous to anyone who can become pregnant. And the people who are the most highly impacted by these laws are certain minorities. This post is focused on how reproductive rights violations impact Indigenous First Nations communities in particular, please do not derail this post or make post additions unless you are Indigenous American.
(note: many of my sources use gendered language that excludes non-women who can become pregnant. i am aware of this and am unhappy about it, but i will still be using reliable data and quotes from these sources.)
Based off of United States statistics, Native American people are the most likely to be sexually assaulted out of any racial demographic in the US by a large margin.
- On average, American Indians ages 12 and older experience 5,900 sexual assaults per year. - American Indians are twice as likely to experience a rape/sexual assault compared to all races. - 41% of sexual assaults against American Indians are committed by a stranger; 34% by an acquaintance; and 25% by an intimate or family member.
A nationally representative survey indicates that while almost 18% of white women and 7% of Asian/Pacific Islander women will be raped in their lifetimes, almost 19% of black women, 24% of mixed race women, and 34% of American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped during their lifetimes.
Sexual assault and rape are indescribably traumatic experiences in and of themselves, even without the layer of potential for unwanted pregnancy. But pregnancy after being raped does occur. Almost 3 million people in the U.S. have experienced rape-related pregnancy. (source [x])
94% of rape victims experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following their assault. (source [x]) People who suffer from PTSD are caused extreme psychological distress by things and experiences and people that remind them of the traumatic event(s) that they suffered through. Finding out that you are carrying your rapist’s fetus can and does majorly inhibit and set back the ability to heal and recover from PTSD.
And even without this factor, many people who experience rape-related pregnancy are children, disabled in ways that would make it dangerous or even fatal to carry out a pregnancy/childbirth, unable to access the resources required during pregnancy/childbirth, or otherwise unfit or unwilling to go through a full pregnancy and childbirth.
Native Americans have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the U.S.
According to a 2018/2019 study, Indigenous populations in the U.S. have the highest percentage of teen births out of any racial demographic.
Teen pregnancy and birth is often incredibly damaging to the victim’s psyche. Teen birthing parents are twice as likely to experience post-partum depression than birthing parents of an appropriate age, have higher rates of other depressive disorders, have higher rates of suicidal ideation, and have higher rates of PTSD. (source [x])
Not only are there often grievous mental health consequences to teen pregnancy, more than 50% of teen birthing parents will receive a high school diploma, and only 2% will receive a degree before the age of 30. (source [x])
Teen birth rates will only go up if abortion is outlawed. This will disproportionately impact Indigenous communities, who already suffer from low graduation rates and high mental illness rates.
Native Americans have higher pregnancy and abortion rates in general.
-Urban AI/AN [American Indian/Alaska Native] were more likely to have had three or more pregnancies and births than NH-whites [Non-Hispanic Whites]. High fertility rates were also seen among young urban AI/AN women age 15-24 years. - Urban AI/AN reports of 2 or more abortions was twice that of NH-whites (10% vs. 5%).
This one is fairly self-explanatory. If a certain demographic is receiving more reproductive care, they will be more impacted by legislation making it difficult/impossible to access that reproductive care.
Native Americans have the highest poverty rate out of any racial demographic in the U.S.
Carrying out a pregnancy, going through childbirth, and raising a child are all things that are made much more difficult by economic disprivilege, especially in the US, where healthcare is very expensive, especially without insurance.
The estimated cost of a pregnancy and birth in the United States is $30,000 for a vaginal birth and $50,000 for a c-section. (source [x]) Many impoverished people just simply do not have that kind of money, and are forced to take on pregnancy and childbirth without appropriate healthcare, or go into medical debt.
Additionally, pregnant people require more food, which they might not be able to afford. Pregnant people often experience side effects that would make it impossible or simply unsafe to work, especially in late stage pregnancy, and people living in poverty cannot afford to lose their jobs or even to miss shifts.
Native Americans have the highest rates of death due to pregnancy/childbirth complications, second only to Black people.
Black and AIAN women have pregnancy-related mortality rates that are over three and two times higher, respectively, compared to the rate for White women (40.8 and 29.7 vs. 12.7 per 100,000 live births)
With a pregnancy mortality rate more than double that of white people, if more Indigenous people are forced to endure a pregnancy, more Indigenous people will die at disproportionate rates.
Racial disparity in pregnancy mortality rates is due in part to inability to access healthcare, as well as systematic racism within healthcare resources themselves.
Native Americans have the highest incarceration rates in the U.S. out of any racial demographic in many states, and the second highest incarceration rates overall.
Native Americans are incarcerated at a rate 38% higher than the national average, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
My final point that I’m going to be discussing is about how American Indigenous people will be treated under abortion bans.
Native Americans face much higher incarceration rates out of almost any ethnic demographic, and very often face more severe punishments than non-native (particularly white) people who were charged with the same crime. If abortion is criminalized and can be punished with incarceration, Native Americans will be disproportionately impacted.
Additionally, people who miscarry can be legally punished under anti-abortion laws, because there is simply no way to prove that miscarriages weren’t intentionally induced in many cases. We are living under a justice system that is biased against Indigenous people, and with the way things are right now, the only logical conclusion that one can draw based on evidence is that Native people who are falsely accused of abortion will be more likely to face criminal charges. Because it’s already happening.
Prosecutors argued methamphetamine use caused Poolaw’s miscarriage between 15 and 17 weeks gestation. But a state medical examiner who testified for the prosecution during the one-day trial in October said there was a complication with the placenta and the fetus had a congenital abnormality. He couldn’t say for certain whether drug use caused the pregnancy loss.
Brittney Poolaw, a 19 year old woman from the Comanche Nation, was sentenced to four years in prison after a miscarriage. The prosecution insisted that she was guilty of self-induced abortion by using meth, as she was an addict, even though medical evidence proved that there were other factors that could very well have caused miscarriage.
Abortion bans are aggressions against anyone who can become pregnant, but AI/AN communities will be impacted disproportionately. Our voices are incredibly important in matters like these, but are often talked over. Allow us to have a platform. Consider how your activism may exclude us. Thank you.
Tlingit people chiefs at the Dakl’ aweidi HÍt (clan house) raising ceremony 3 from the Raven moiety, (from the left) and a Wolf moiety, (far right) – Sitka Kaagwaantaan Naa Shaa dei hani, in Alaska
The leftmost and right center figural robes are woven in a technique called Chilkat weaving - it’s on the standard grid, but Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida women figured out how to weave circles into them, which is kind of a feat. Each of these robes easily takes a year to complete. They’re traditionally made from mountain goat wool and have an otter fur strip at the neck - they’re heavy, and you get the overwhelming sensation of being around a virtuoso object when you’re in the same room as one. They’re part of a category of object called at.oow in Tlingit traditional law - what other people might call an object of cultural patrimony. I can only imagine what it’s like to be Tlingit and wear one of these.
The left center geometric piece is called a Ravenstail robe - it’s made in the same way and of the same materials as a Chilkat robe, but is an older form of the robe. There are a handful of robes out there circa around 1800, I think mainly in European anthropological collections, that are called Transitional robes because they’ve got both Ravenstail and Chilkat elements, like these:
The robe on the right is a form that’s usually called a Button Blanket. Like the Chilkat robes, these tend to display clan crests. I can’t tell what that one’s made of but, before the introduction of European or Canadian or American made pearl shell buttons, some of those robes were made out of dentalium shells traded all the way up from Native California. Using those old school materials has made a comeback in the past thirty years in the Northwest Coast, which is awesome to see.
Evelyn Vanderhoop (Haida) is a major force in the renaissance of woven robes. Here’s a photo of her with a Transitional style tunic she wove:
Day 6 of #mermay is a whale mermaid! (And, you know, two onlooking mermaids for scale.) She’s Native Alaskan, because of how much whales appear in the artwork and stories of so many of the native tribes of that region. I’m really pleased with how she came out!
