Member Bryce Springfield

During my first semester at Princeton, I, like many students, decided to look into student organizations that I could get involved with going forward. Apart from wishing to satisfy my “speedcubing” hobby with the Cube Club, I also looked into left-wing organizations to which I could contribute, as I had been a committed socialist for several years at that point.

While several left-wing organizations had gone dormant, one that caught my interest was The Prog. A quick glance at the description made The Prog seem like a great fit for me: it is Princeton’s only left-wing campus newspaper written by and for students. However, after taking a look at The Prog’s website, one piece raised a lot of questions for me: “OPINION: What’s Really Happening in Xinjiang?” by an anonymous author. As I read the article, I found myself disappointed with the article’s arguments, which sounded similar to points I had heard from some Marxist-Leninists and even the Chinese government’s own public comments.

My first thought was this: the Left is meant to question the status quo and its institutions. Considering the pervasiveness of capitalist institutions in China’s economy and authoritarian bureaucracy, one should think that a minimization of the Chinese government’s oppression of minority groups should be something that leftists radically reject. However, I did not find this article to follow that ideal.

In its introduction, the author of “What’s Really Happening in Xinjiang” rightly points out that the United States has utilized unfounded claims and racist propaganda to justify its imperialist ambitions. Most visibly, this is what happened after the September 11 terrorist attacks as President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” in response. Many Muslim Americans were targeted and discriminated against by individuals and the government, which has had lasting repercussions until today. Even in recent years, nearly half of Americans see Muslims as a group more inclined to violence than others, and Muslims are the least approved-of religious group in the United States, according to survey data from the Pew Research Center.

The War on Terror gained widespread legitimacy and support through the construction of an Islamic “threat” that justified US-backed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and other regions, leading to at least 37 million displacements, mass food insecurity, and the deaths of 897,000 to 929,000 people.

Yet, alongside vague references to “CIA front groups, defense contractors, and Western government sources” fabricating empirical support for key claims regarding the genocide, the author resorts to suspiciously familiar fearmongering about the “increasing radicalization of some of [Xinjiang’s] Islamic citizens” — referring to a few notable cases of terrorism — as, seemingly, a mitigating factor for the oppression that the Chinese government commits against an entire population. Though I applaud the author for at least acknowledging officials’ “eager[ness] to surveil, arrest, and racially profile Uyghurs,” some parts of the article appear to me to question whether key claims of atrocities in Xinjiang are true or imply an alternative framing of “vocational schools.”

In this article, I hope to demonstrate compelling evidence from the Chinese government itself and other openly available sources to emphasize the state oppression of Uyghur Muslims in the majority-minority Xinjiang province, particularly from 2017 to 2019. Then, I will discuss how leftists can reconcile legitimate claims of atrocities with anti-imperialism and international solidarity against statist and capitalist systems that profit off of oppressed groups.

Genocide

Of course, “genocide” is often a loaded term used to overcharacterize a wide range of atrocities, as the author of the opinion piece points out. For the sake of using this word in line with international standards, I will compare the United Nations’ definition of genocide with what I believe is occurring in Xinjiang based solely on the information presented in this article.

In Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or simply the Genocide Convention, ratified or acceded to by 149 countries, including China, the following definition was approved:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a. Killing members of the group;

b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Most people likely immediately only think of part (a), but this excerpt demonstrates that genocide also includes other sorts of atrocities while maintaining clear, defined bounds. In the case of Xinjiang since at least 2017, I would argue that, with the points made in this article, at least (b) through (d) likely apply due to mandatory “re-education” for Muslim practices and especially forced birth prevention. Therefore, I will use the term “Uyghur genocide” to refer to the state oppression particularly against Muslims in Xinjiang, but that may also target others in Xinjiang.

For the purposes of this article, in addition to mentioning a few things about forced cultural assimilation (which some refer to as “cultural genocide”), I will primarily focus on the genocidal aspects of oppression in Xinjiang according to the UN definition, although there is also much to be said about surveillance and repression of free expression in Xinjiang for the sake of “stability,” including against activists pushing for — and this is of particular interest to the Left — environmental protections.

Internment Camps

The most well-reported aspect of the Uyghur genocide is perhaps its internment camps, described by the Chinese government as “vocational education and training centers” or “re-education camps.” According to Chinese government officials, there is an “urgent need” for these camps in order to fight the “Three Evil Forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism that have threatened Chinese territorial and civil stability “[b]etween 1990 and the end of 2016.”

Shortly after this policy realignment, the creation of internment camps was first observed in 2017. In 2018, Xinjiang officials responded by either denying the camps’ existence or justifying them as agents of social stability and economic growth. What is interesting is that in 2015, a few years before this major policy shift, Chinese government officials claimed that they had already been extremely effective in preventing terrorist attacks, indicating that the new policies in Xinjiang were not in response to heightened terrorist activity.

Since then, Chinese government sources have shifted toward acknowledging the re-education camps and have even invited Western journalists to observe them under highly restrictive conditions, presenting them as bona fide educational facilities. However, an analysis of the birth rates and arrest rates in Xinjiang suggests something more nefarious.

Crude birth rates and incarceration rates

One does not need to rely on Western researchers or on testimonials to find drastic irregularities that cannot reasonably be explained by normal demographic or developmental trends. In fact, we only need to look at the Chinese government’s own annual statistical reports, the China Statistical Yearbooks, which it publishes online and in print. Unfortunately, the Yearbooks do not report on ethnic breakdowns. Regardless, an analysis of the provided data points to abnormal trends in Xinjiang, which is mostly populated by minority groups and nearly half Uyghur, that are not observed in other regions in the same time frame.

The first piece of evidence that should raise serious concern is Xinjiang’s change in birth rates over the last few years. Although the Chinese government began omitting regional birth rates from the 2020 statistics, the data up to 2019 is clearly unusual.

My analysis begins with recent regional birth rate data from 2013 through 2019 provided by the China Statistical Yearbooks. Below are a couple of graphs I constructed to visualize the data. In the first, we see a significant drop of 49% in the annual birth rate in Xinjiang between 2017 and 2019, which is a much faster drop than that of China as a whole. This brings the regional birth rates significantly below that of the country, which is all the more concerning given that Xinjiang’s historical birth rates had been notably higher than that of the national average.

To compare this to other regions in China, below is a histogram showing Xinjiang as the lowest instance of birth rates from 2017, when the “vocational camps” opened, to 2019. One thing to note is that with the rescinding of the One Child Policy in 2015 and 2016, according to many Chinese demographers, we should see an immediate increase in birth rates followed by decreases over this period — due to “two-child policies” — to a greater extent than natural changes. Given that Xinjiang was exempted from having one-child restrictions as mentioned in the article, meaning it should not have experienced shocks from this, it should be concerning that it is an extreme outlier even compared to other Chinese provinces that were expected to experience significant changes.

The only comparable drop in reported birth rates since 1950 that I am aware of is that of Greenland from mass sterilization under Danish colonial rule, which is a fitting comparison. Even this, however, was over the course of nearly a decade rather than two years.

We see unusual changes in official contraceptive data in 2018 in Xinjiang, as well. In the China Health Statistical Yearbooks, we see rapid increases in the national proportion of sterilizations — which include vasectomies and “tube tying” — in Xinjiang especially in 2018. The author of the original article correctly notes that Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist and senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation widely cited for claims about the Uyghur genocide, performed serious errors in his calculations of sterilizations in Xinjiang, but the data displayed below demonstrates the point to be generally correct, despite his obvious biases and propensity to exaggerate.

In addition to information on birth rates and birth control, we can look at incarceration rates reported by government officials in various work reports. Analyzing the official work reports of the Xinjiang provincial government and the Chinese national government, I produced the graph below to represent the percentage of arrests in China as a whole that were in Xinjiang. Clear abnormalities are present from 2017 to 2019, and provincial reports are notably missing from 2022, when national arrests exploded from the White Paper Protests, where protestors sang “The Internationale” and other socialist messaging against authoritarian suppression, particularly aggravated by the Ürümqi fire in Xinjiang. Incidentally, while the arrest reports mention the regulation of monopolies and fraud, their defense of capital is evident in their talk of promoting the “deep integration of party building and business,” “serving private enterprises,” and highlighting the punishment of “crimes against the legitimate rights and interests of private enterprises.” This is a topic I will return to later.

Despite Xinjiang being just 1.5% of the national population, it quickly went from making up less than 5% of national arrests to more than 20% after 2017, and arrests remained quite high in the following years. Considering that terrorist incidents in Xinjiang did not more than quadruple between 2016 and 2017, this should suggest that a campaign against a more vast swath of the population had been coordinated.

Razing of cultural sites

Beyond statistical data on reproduction and incarceration, it is also important to look at the cultural effects of the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang, which may also help us think about why China chose to ramp up repression in the region despite declining terrorist incidents. Evidence from publicly available satellite imagery has been studied to look at how religious and cultural sites in Xinjiang have been affected. Systematic studies have demonstrated an unusual 32% of mosques in Xinjiang having been destroyed and another 28% significantly damaged between 2017 and 2020. One of the more visible examples of this was the erasure of the ancient Imam Asim Shrine, where thousands of Muslim pilgrims regularly prayed and tied flags just a decade ago before its apparent destruction.

Islamophobic legislation

Next, I will examine the policies and prevailing ideas that may be driving Uyghur persecution in Xinjiang. For this, I closely read the 2017 “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulation on De-Extremification,” hosted on the Xinjiang regional government’s website. While I used a browser extension to translate the document, which could lead to misinterpretation, others have performed their own translations, which read similarly to my computer translation. Revisions to the law in 2018 see nearly identical restrictions.

Beginning in Chapter I, article 3 of the legislation, the definition of “extremification” is left very broad. Specifically, it notes that “[e]xtremification … refers to speech and actions under the influence of extremism, that spread radical religious ideology, and reject and interfere with normal production and livelihood.” Extremism refers to ideas and behaviors that “incite hatred and discrimination, and advocate violence by distorting religious teaching and other methods.”

What is inciting hatred and discrimination, or violence? What is “radical religious ideology”? What is considered an interference “with normal production and livelihood”? These questions are not answered in the document and these terms are left open to interpretation so that any idea one may find challenging could be a “violent” thought and any behavior deemed atypical could be “radical” and interfere with “normal production.” This enables the document to provide sweeping powers to the government to persecute Muslims in Xinjiang who adopt more visibly Islamic clothing, speech, traditions, and political and religious thought.

The legislation specifically prohibits “irregular beards or name selection,” the wearing of “burqas with face coverings,” or other “symbols of extremification” in Chapter II. The former two restrictions are common presentations and behaviors of Muslims worldwide, and the latter can describe anything the government deems as “extreme,” leaving ample room for arbitrary discrimination.

In Chapter III, the legislation reveals the main objective of these strict regulations: “De-extremification shall persist in the correct political orientation and direction of public opinion” (Article 12) and “shall do a good job of … combining ideological education, psychological counseling, behavioral corrections, and skills training [emphases added]” (Article 14). From this 2017 legislation, the pervading theme seems to be the Chinese and Xinjiang governments’ interest in forcing cultural and political conformity and the “correct political orientation” of Xi Jinping onto the Uyghur and Muslim populations of Xinjiang.

Global imperialist and capitalist intersections

As mentioned in the opening paragraphs, it is important to recognize that the justifications given by Chinese officials for increased control of the Uyghur population is a continuation of the global “War on Terror” proliferated by the United States. After the September 11 attacks, Chinese state rhetoric on the Uyghur population shifted toward dubiously connecting Uyghur organizations and jihadist groups rather than emphasizing “pan-Turkic separatism.” In fact, some of the United States’ current foreign policies in Central Asia may actually bolster the deportation of Uyghur Muslims to China, as the US subsidizes security systems and massive hauls of military equipment for authoritarian regimes in the region who are themselves supportive of the crackdowns in Xinjiang or who find some of their own Uyghur citizens too disruptive.

It should be mentioned that the Chinese government stands to benefit from oil deposits and other economic opportunities through its grip on Xinjiang and by employing War on Terror-esque justifications against the majority Muslim peoples that populate much of the province.

In addition, while labor conditions in China as a whole are quite squalid, oppression and surveillance in Xinjiang have been particularly beneficial to global capitalism’s exploitation of workers for endless profit. Regardless of concerns about human rights violations in Xinjiang, companies like Nike and Tesla benefit from the province’s cotton and polysilicon production supported by forced laborers and actively try to water down labor laws related to it; and billions have been invested in public-private security technology partnerships, drastically higher than in previous years. Meanwhile, as hinted in the section on incarceration, the Chinese Communist Party’s deep defense of private interests is clear in its own rhetoric and overt actions, even incorporating capitalist CEOs and business leaders as a major part of the National People’s Congress and as a core piece of the Party itself.

* * *

There is far more to be said about the complexities of state oppression in Xinjiang, including the silencing of left-wing activists, anti-LGBTQ laws, the government leaks of mass surveillance data, the heavily restricted conditions of foreign inspections, and more. Alas, there is only so much that can fit in one piece.

Of course, several aspects of what has been documented in Xinjiang have been committed by Western governments, particularly toward indigenous and Black populations. However, this does not mean that the Uyghur genocide is any less troubling because other countries do the same. It does indicate that the working class has multiple competing enemies sustaining the same system of globalized state capitalism. To this day, state oppression in Xinjiang benefits global capitalism, including Western firms, through its securitization and production of materials under poor conditions. We must find ways to liberate the oppressed in Xinjiang, regardless of the atrocities of either “side.”

We should always question government and corporate media narratives as well as their motives. However, we can look at concrete data and other public information to substantiate at least some claims espoused by agenda setters. Perhaps exaggerated conclusions and the history of US imperialism rightly result in a higher degree of skepticism, but, in this case, we have convincing primary source evidence available, free from the manipulation of US propaganda outlets, Adrian Zenz, or any other potentially biased Western source.

As leftists, we should respond to the clear motives that some interest groups and US officials have regarding the expansion of US imperialism not by trying to dismiss or mitigate claims of atrocities as only “in service of a larger imperial project” or by giving credibility to government-constructed visits or other authoritarian governments’ representatives and ambassadors, but by educating our peers about what war hawks wish to do with information of atrocities. US statements and policies acknowledging the Uyghur genocide are not the problem; the problem is the imperialist tendencies of the United States and the influence that pro-interventionist interest groups have over our government.

It is not easy to provide a simple solution to end and provide restitution for the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, but surely most leftists can agree that putting American boots in China or attempting to externally change the country’s regime aren’t viable options if we want to reduce violence and promote freedom across the world. Part of the solution will need to involve teaching international solidarity for the liberation of all working class people, including for Chinese Uyghurs potentially seeking refuge. This is what many in the Muslim world have already demonstrated through mass demonstrations in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Indonesia, just to name a few, and through polls in Palestine. It may also involve accepting refugees, and independent socialist groups developing alternative media and support infrastructure to aid those potentially suffering from oppression or organizing for liberation.

Neither the US’s democratic capitalism nor China’s capitalism with Marxist–Leninist aesthetics will save us. Only the working class can save itself through building solidarity and, in this case, critically assessing claims of atrocities without lending fallacious credibility to either imperialist or denialist tendencies.

This piece was originally published in The Princeton Progressive.

Our focus this week is on Cuba, where a 62 year blockade is being continued by President Biden. We’ll be hearing from the DSA. International Committee activists campaigning to end the blockade on a recent political win, and a from Desirée Michelle Molina, a recent Columbia University graduate who has just spent four months living in the country.  Our episode starts with an update from Jeremy Cohan, co-chair of New York City DSA, about what to expect from the DSA’s National Convention in Chicago this weekend.

By Madison Tenant Power

This spring, Core Spaces (a Chicago-based developer with two “luxury” student housing developments in Madison and controversial proposals for two more) made national news for mass evicting thousands of tenants in Santa Barbara. These “renovictions” happened with little notice, leaving residents scrambling to find housing in their communities. In response, tenants in California founded the nationwide Core Spaces Tenant Association to fight back against the threat of mass displacement. Even as these tenants have worked to secure new legal protections against renovictions, Core Spaces has attempted to mislead tenants about the ordinances that apply to their case.  

Prior to these mass evictions, the affordable housing crisis in Santa Barbara already meant that some students sleep in their cars. Core Spaces has created and exacerbated a significant eviction crisis in Santa Barbara, Pasadena, and other college towns throughout the country.

Core Spaces already has two developments in Madison, The Hub and Oliv (under construction), both of which have been extremely unpopular with both students and community members at every stage of development. Core Spaces knocked down the historic bookstore A Room of One’s Own and Community Pharmacy to build Oliv, and The Hub continues to be one of the most expensive student housing developments in the city. In June, following a community-wide debate focused on a Core Spaces project’s lack of affordable units in the proposed project, the Madison City Council initially rejected the rezoning request for one of two proposed new developments in downtown Madison, and then reversed their decision, greenlighting the controversial, expensive project.

Students in Core Spaces’s existing property in Madison, the Hub, deal with broken appliances, unresponsive maintenance, and 20% rent increases with little notice. At the Hub, tenants pay thousands of dollars per month to sleep three people in a room. (Core Spaces’ Oliv property promises to add “1100 beds” to Madison’s existing housing stock.) 

Madison does not need more bloated megadorms, which will create a short-term uptick in housing supply without addressing long-term issues with housing affordability and access. Lack of municipal accountability creates dangerous conditions for residents because of the city’s willingness to yield contracts to unpopular developers. 

In Madison, UW students are already facing a housing crisis. The eviction crisis in Santa Barbara and other college towns where Core Spaces has built new developments or gutted out existing properties to make “luxury” apartments anticipates what is to come in Madison if Core Spaces and other developers are allowed to continue their development unchecked: long-term housing insecurity and displacement for both UW students and non-university Madison area residents.

Core Spaces seems to be a particularly harmful developer and landlord; however the problem goes beyond a single developer. The City of Madison needs to emphasize creating affordable housing solutions near campus for the safety of low-income students. Across the city, 25% of Madison households who rent are severely cost burdened by rent (meaning they spend more than half of household income on housing), a trend that will only worsen without real oversight or interventions. With the passing of Governor Evers’s 2023 Wisconsin Act 16 and 2023 Wisconsin Act 18, developers can apply for loans that will cover the cost of improving the living conditions of existing workforce rental housing and the cost of converting vacant commercial buildings into affordable housing for workers. The construction of prohibitively expensive apartment units that push rental prices higher across the city does not create viable housing solutions, but merely compounds the existing housing accessibility crisis.

As members of Madison Tenant Power and Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America, we stand in solidarity with the Core Spaces Tenant Association and ask:

• That Core Spaces executives rescind the eviction notices for thousands of tenants in the CBC and the Sweeps apartment complexes in Santa Barbara and work to cooperate with tenants to find an arrangement that keeps people housed.
• That the City of Madison convene an advisory board of current residents of The Hub to help shape the terms of any development agreement between the city and Core Spaces.
• That the City of Madison enforce building code violations at The Hub.
• That the City of Madison only approve new developments in Madison that include affordable units (“affordable” meaning — rent regulated, priced with median income in Dane County) and collective bargaining for all rental contracts. 
• That the City of Madison consider mixed-use development as one strategy for protecting against runaway rent hikes: student residential buildings with long-term residents to protect against developers taking advantage of a young, transient population to artificially inflate rental prices across the city.

This post was previously published on Craftivism by our member Saige.

Content Warning: this post contains mentions of rape, forced sterilization, eugenics, white supremacy, and chattel slavery.

Abortion has been around as long as pregnancy itself, with one of the earliest known recordings of abortion from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1600 BC. In the Dobbs ruling which overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Alito said in the majority opinion that “the Court examines whether the right to obtain an abortion is rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition and whether it is an essential component of ‘ordered liberty.’ The Court finds that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” This narrative is downright false, unless you ignore the brutal history of restricting access to bodily autonomy and the criminalization of abortion dating back to colonial times. Let’s go down the rabbit hole together.

Colonial & Early America

During the early days of America, the Colonies governed abortion according to English common law, which largely did not recognize a state interest in pregnancy or abortion until quickening (which can happen as late as the 25th week of pregnancy), the occurrence of which was left solely to the pregnant person to determine. Quickening is the point in pregnancy when the pregnant person can feel the fetus move around in their womb. The common law was largely employed to protect the interests of the woman, not the fetus.

As told in the book, When Abortion Was A Crime by Leslie J. Reagan, historians have since learned that colonial women viewed conception as a “disruption of the menses”, which required attention. Reagan wrote, “The cessation of the menses indicated a worrisome imbalance in the body and the need to bring the body back into balance by restoring the flow. This idea of menstruation corresponded with medical and popular understanding of sickness and health. The body was a delicate system of equilibrium that could easily be thrown out of balance — by a change in weather or diet, for example — and that then needed to be restored through active intervention. A disruption in the healthy body, in the worldview of patients and physicians, required a visible, often violent, physical response to treatment in order to restore equilibrium. This theory underlay eighteenth-and nineteenth-century regular medical practice, which emphasized heroic measures — bleeding, blistering, purging, and puking — in response to sickness. The response to the blocking of the menses was part of this shared understanding of the body: women took drugs in order to make their menses regular and regarded the ensuing vomiting and evacuation as evidence of the drugs’ effective action.”

It’s known that pregnant people during this era who wanted to restore their menses did so commonly by the use of herbal remedies, many of which were frequently advertised in local papers. As written in Reagan’s book, “One colonial woman who feared pregnancy had “twice taken Savin; once boyled in milk and the other time strayned through a Cloath.” Savin, derived from juniper bushes, was the most popular abortifacient and easily acquired since junipers grew wild throughout the country. Other herbs used as abortifacients included pennyroyal, tansy, ergot, and seneca snakeroot. Slave women used cottonroot. Many of these useful plants could be found in the woods or cultivated in gardens, and women could refer to home medical guides for recipes for ‘bringing on the menses.'” These are a few of the many examples of the attitudes in early America towards pregnancy and abortion — that it was the pregnant person’s realm and theirs to decide.

Well… sort of. Black women were denied the right to their bodily autonomy and their freedom, since their children were viewed as property by the slaveholder, they could be punished if the slaveholder thought they induced a miscarriage/abortion as that would lower the labor force for the plantation. In Angela Davis’ book Women, Race, and Class, she tells us, “[enslaved Black] Women suffered in different ways as well, for they were the victims of sexual abuse and other barbarous mistreatment that could only be inflicted on women. Expediency governed the slaveholders posture towards female slaves: when it was profitable to exploit them as if they were men, they were regarded, in effect, as genderless, but when they could be exploited, punished, and repressed in ways suited only for women, they were locked exclusively into their female roles”. The creation of the difference between biological sex verses gender was strictly created to subjugate Black women while simultaneously denying them of their womanhood. We still see the effects of this today by misogynoir and the hyper-masculinization of Black women.

Continuing in Davis’ book, “This did not mean, however, that as mothers, Black women enjoyed a more respected status than they enjoyed as workers. Ideological exhalation of motherhood – as popular as it was during the 19th century – did not extend to slaves. In fact in the eyes of the slaveholders, slave women were not mothers at all; they were simply instruments in guaranteeing the growth of the slave labor force. They were “breeders” – animals, whose monetary value could be precisely calculated in terms of their ability to multiply their numbers. Since slave women were classified as “breeders” as opposed to “mothers”, their infant children could be sold away form them like calves from cows.” This is important in debunking the anti-abortion talking point that either “slaves or slaveholders were “pro-life””. It’s also notable when you think about Justice Alito stating that there’s a “low domestic supply of infants” – the term ‘domestic supply’ is most often used when talking about livestock – as in the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption.

Despite this, many Black and Indigenous women had midwife skills and took control when they could of their reproductive health through their shared knowledge of herbal remedies to “restore the menses” and physical means when the herbal remedies weren’t effective. It is noted that slaveholders used these medical practitioners to ensure the health of their reproducing, enslaved women and their newborn infants to expand their labor force. It was also common for midwives to attend to the slave master’s wives during birth as well. This is a great article that talks more about the historical significance of midwives and doulas.

It wasn’t until 1821 when Connecticut enacted the nation’s first abortion restriction by “punishing any person who provided or took poison or ‘other noxious and destructive substance’ with the intent to cause ‘the miscarriage of any woman, then being quick with child’” due to a sex scandal between a preacher and his congregant. One important note: early abortion restrictions, such as this one from Connecticut, were often vague, difficult to enforce, and meant to protect the pregnant person from death, not the fetus.

Increasing Racial Tensions & the Formation of the American Medical Association

America was going through a lot during the 1840s and 1850s: an influx of European immigrants, the increasing racial tensions between Plantation owners and enslaved people, and elite Protestant white women who were the largest demographic seeking out abortions. All of this combined threatened (terrified) the Anglo-Saxon plantation-owning ruling class.

In 1847, the American Medical Association was established. This was an institute of only white men seeking to standardize healthcare practices, ethics guidelines and improve the outcomes of healthcare. Some people will ask the question “why does it matter that it was only white men? What does race and gender have to do with this?” The formation of the American Medical Association was a key factor in the banning of midwives and homeopaths (many of who were Black or Indigenous) and ultimately criminalizing abortion in all fifty states until the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in 1973.

By being an all-white institution, this attracted men like Dr. Horatio Storer to the Association. The American Medical Association’s original policies did not mention abortion, but in 1856, Storer began pushing the group to explore what he called “criminal abortion.” He argued that abortion was immoral and caused “derangement” in women because it interfered with nature. Storer believed that “abortions were endangering what he saw as the ideal America: a society of white Protestants in which women adhered strictly to their proper ‘duties’ — marriage and childbearing.” He lobbied for the association to think of abortion not as a medical act, but a grave crime, one that lowered the profession as a whole. Storer equated abortion to infanticide and fought for what we now call “fetal personhood”.

Once he had the American Medical Association on board with this, just a decade later in 1857, he began the Physicians Campaign Against Abortion. The American Medical Association held their position against abortion until 1967. In this campaign, Storer campaigned on a moral argument that also tapped into the racial fears of the moment, fears that would eventually inspire a pseudo-scientific field of “racial improvement and planned breeding of the population” — known today as eugenics. It is important to note this is the first time in American history when abortion has a morality attached to it.

It’s good to note that his position on abortion did receive criticism. In the book, When Abortion Was A Crime, Reagan states, “some physicians argued that the issue of abortion was too nuanced for him to take such a forceful stand upon, one critic accused him of disregarding the lives and well-being of the pregnant women implicated in abortion, other critics were mainly concerned with Storer’s proposed changes to Massachusetts law which might have criminalized some of the activities they performed as physicians. However, in the end many medical societies and physicians around the country soon came to Storer’s defense and endorsed his positions.” As told by Reagan, “the antiabortion campaign was a reactionary response to two important efforts of the nineteenth-century women’s movements: the fight to admit women into the regular medical profession and the battle to make men conform to a single standard of sexual behavior. The antiabortion campaign coincided with the fight by male Regulars to keep women out of their medical schools, societies, and hospitals.” The term ‘Regulars’ is a dated historical term used to describe the white men who were entering the medical field.

As mentioned earlier, Elite Protestant white women were the largest demographic seeking out abortion. The birth rate for Protestant white women had been declining over the course of the 19th century, so Storer and the American Medical Association had fears of what was commonly referred to as “race-suicide”, that the Anglo-Saxon stock was not going to replenish itself fast enough to keep up with the swells of new immigrants coming to the United States — this is now known as the ‘great replacement theory’. He feared that the birth rates of recent immigrants, predominantly Catholic, would overwhelm the dominance of white Protestants in New England, for which he in part blamed married Protestant women for not producing enough children (does this sound familiar?). He equated marriage without a focus on fertility as “nothing less than legalized prostitution”. Storer pushed for the narrative to become that “white women needed to use their loins” because of the “Blackening and the browning” of the United States; Storer’s thinking was that criminalizing abortion would help re-balance the scales of who was being born into the United States. In order to help keep the white race dominant in the United States and lend legitimacy to the American Medical Association, Storer persuaded them to form the Committee on Criminal Abortion and promote sterilization of what they deemed to be “undesirable individuals” — a policy that lasted well into the 1970s and has been exposed to be done on incarcerated people and immigrants held in ICE detention centers.

As a Result of these Efforts…

As a result of Storer’s efforts, the AMA petitioned the state legislatures and territories to strengthen their laws against elective abortions. By 1880, most states and territories had enacted such legislation. In Reagan’s book, When Abortion Was A Crime, she stated “The antiabortion campaign points to the important role played by nongovernmental agencies in policing abortion. As voluntary medical societies and reform groups took up enforcing the criminal abortion laws, they essentially acted as part of the state. Indeed, official government agencies and the police relied upon private individuals and agencies to assist in enforcing the laws; in the abortion case, state officials expected the medical profession to act as a leader to repress the practice, particularly within the profession’s own ranks. Physicians who spoke vehemently against abortion represented the official view of medicine that the profession presented to the public, but, as we have seen, the public image projected by the leaders of medicine did not accurately represent the attitudes and actions of all physicians. Although many doctors participated in abortion in contradiction of their profession’s norms, few openly challenged the official attitude.” This reminds me of this article about abortion and snitch culture by Jessica Valenti (highly recommend subscribing to her substack for the latest details on abortion access).

Once abortion was officially outlawed in every state by 1910, most with exceptions for the life and health of the pregnant person, the anti-abortion movement allowed the state to carry out its interests.

During the 1900s, numerous states enacted eugenics programs and the forced sterilization of people deemed “undesirable” — disabled people, Black and Brown people, immigrants, criminals, and sex workers. By the 1970s, forced sterilization dramatically decreased, although, 31 states still have these laws on the books.

Targeting Abortion Via Mail

Similar to websites today providing abortion pills through mail, advertisements for abortion remedies were quite common in newspapers in the mid 1800s. In order to halt the mailing and advertising of abortion remedies, in 1873 the Comstock Act was signed into law. This legislation made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” “immoral,” or “indecent” publications through the mail. The law also made it a misdemeanor for anyone to sell, give away, or possess an obscene book, pamphlet, picture, drawing, or advertisement. This included writings or instruments pertaining to contraception and abortion, even if written by a physician.

It’s important to note that the Comstock Act was never actually repealed by Congress. Instead, it was overturned through a series of Supreme Court cases, most notably Griswold v. Connecticut. This technically means that this law is still on the books — it’s merely unenforceable thanks to the protections given by said Supreme Court cases, although right-wing actors will move to strike those cases down just as they did with Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

Roe v Wade: Death By A Thousand Cuts

The women’s rights movement, along with the other social and political reforms, was picking up speed by the late 1960s. Many people, even those of faith, wanted abortion access to be legal. In 1967, Colorado became the first state to legalize abortion, other states such as Hawaii, Alaska, New York, and Washington followed suit in 1970.

As mainstream Protestants and Reform Jews called for the liberalization of abortion laws, a group of clergy in New York City founded the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CCS), an international network of clergy that helped women obtain legal and illegal abortions from licensed medical professionals. This had over 2,000 members. Reverend Carl Bielby spoke with Michigan lawmakers who were conducting public hearings on the state’s abortion laws. Reverend Bielby was a leader of Michigan’s CCS. At the hearing, he represented the Michigan Council of Churches’ position that, “as a matter of human right, each woman be given the control of her own body and procreative function, and that she has the moral responsibility and obligation for the just and sober stewardship thereof.”

The Southern Baptist Convention even passed resolutions calling for abortion legalization in 1971. They reaffirmed the resolution in 1974 and again in 1976. Many Southern Baptists saw the Roe decision as drawing a needed line between church and state on matters of morality and state regulation. A Baptist Press article just days after the decision called it “an advancement of religious liberty, human equality and justice.”

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court announced their decision on Roe v. Wade. The ruling decided that in the first trimester of pregnancy, the state may not regulate the abortion decision; only the pregnant woman and her attending physician can make that decision. In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health. In the third trimester, once the fetus reaches the point of “viability,” a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, so long as the laws contain exceptions for cases when abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the mother.

While Roe greatly improved maternal health outcomes, maternal and infant mortality rates, and overall people’s quality of life, accessing abortion under Roe was still difficult for many — especially low-income people, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and people living in rural communities.

This is especially true because over the next few decades, lawmakers implemented a variety of laws to limit access to abortion (and still are). These laws come in the form of prohibiting Medicaid and other insurance from covering abortion-related costs, having unnecessary and burdensome requirements for clinics and abortion providers (TRAP laws) in an attempt to close clinics, requiring abortion clinics to be within so many miles of a hospital despite abortion having a 99% safety record, parental consent for minors, mandated waiting periods for people seeking abortion, medically-inaccurate counseling designed to discourage people from abortion; essentially death [of abortion access and bodily autonomy] by a thousand cuts. Many of these barriers are meant to delay the limited amount of time a pregnant person has to legally obtain an abortion.

What Moved Evangelicals To Be Against Abortion? The Short Answer: Racism.

Imagine a modern day anti-abortion protester: you’re probably picturing a white, Evangelical Christian in front of an abortion clinic holding one of those graphic images.

As we’ve discussed so far, the average white, Evangelical Christian, have not always been the face of the anti-abortion movement. It was previously doctors with an agenda to retain the position (power) they had. When Roe passed, many Evangelicals were either happy or neutral as they viewed abortion as a Catholic issue. One poll in 1970 conducted by the Baptist Sunday School Board found that 70 percent of Southern Baptist pastors supported abortion to protect the mental or physical health of the mother, 64 percent supported abortion in cases of fetal deformity and 71 percent in cases of rape. Three years later, a poll conducted by the Baptist Standard news-journal found that 90 percent of Texas Baptists believed their state’s abortion laws were too restrictive.

So what happened?

In 1953, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on Brown v. Board of Education, declaring the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine unconstitutional. Despite this ruling, many states, especially Southern states, took their time integrating schools (because they didn’t want their white children going to school with Black children) and other public spaces.

Nearly a decade later in 1962, SCOTUS ruled on Engel v. Vitale, the case that decided it was against our First Amendment rights to hold an official prayer in public schools.

By 1971, Bob Jones University refused to integrate its school. As a result of this refusal in 1976, the IRS rescinded Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status. The university also prohibited interracial dating, a policy they maintained until 2000.

These actions outraged Evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell, Paul Weyrich, and Francis Schaeffer. Instead of mobilizing in defense of segregation — which Evangelical leaders knew was a losing cause — they decided to rile up their base using abortion and decried government intrusion into their affairs as an assault on religious freedom, thereby writing a page for the modern Republican Party playbook.

In 1979, Francis Schaeffer, Jerry Falwell, and Paul Weyrich — the founder of the conservative-think-tank The Heritage Foundation — teamed up and founded the “Moral Majority” to promote conservative social causes — i.e. the prohibition of abortion in all cases, traditional family values, anti-LGBTQ, anti-ERA, converting Jewish people and non-Christians to Christianity, prayer in public schools. This was in direct response to all the progress of the civil rights movement as they saw it as an attack on their way of life — which parallels how the white plantation-owners were terrified and felt threatened by newly emancipated Black people, and non-Protestant, non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants entering America.

They began giving sermons to mobilize the masses of white, conservative, Evangelical Christians (especially across the South, although their work extended well beyond the South). In these sermons, they tapped into a sense of “moral decay” which resonated with many and used violent rhetoric in their sermons that emboldened anti-abortionists to justify the violence committed against clinics and abortion providers.

Francis Schaeffer stated in one of these rhetorically violent sermons, “The answer is clear — the consensus of our society no longer rests upon a Christian basis, but upon a humanistic one. Humanism is man putting himself at the center of all things rather than the Creator, God.” He then argued that the result was “a society that had lost its moral foundation and threatened to shipwreck itself on the shoals of western civilization”. He told his many followers, “There does come a time when force, even physical force is appropriate.” This was a key moment in getting white Evangelicals both politically motivated and against abortion.

Post-Roe America

When Roe was overturned the vast majority of the country was outraged. However, the loud-mouth minority rejoiced. Many of the leading anti-abortion organizations, politicians, and churches, released statements of “celebration” on how the fall of Roe is a “victory for life” (then they immediately stuck their head in the sand to ignore all the consequences of Roe being overturned).

One congresswoman, Mary Miller (R)-IL, had a Freudian slip and called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade a “historic victory for white life” at a campaign rally with former President Donald Trump. Her campaign later said that she “misspoke”. Keep in mind, this is the same politician who apologized shortly after she took office for quoting Hitler.

Far-right, white nationalist organizations such as the Proud Boys have been known to attend the March For Life rallies with no condemnation from the March For Life organization.

The Proud Boys, and other white Christian-nationalist organizations alike, believe that “illegal aliens” (i.e. Black, Brown, and non-Christian immigrants) are making white people the minority in America, that they are taking our job opportunities, and are ultimately harming our families. Therefore, they feel they must act to protect the sanctity of white life by any means necessary. Due to the interconnected history of the anti-abortion movement to the Great Replacement theory, white supremacists are attracted to the anti-abortion movement the way a moth is to a flame.

It’s also worth mentioning that members of white Christian-nationalist organizations also hold positions of power — law enforcement, elected/appointed positions, etc. North Carolina Representative Keith Kidwell has known ties to the Oath Keepers and former North Carolina Representative Larry Pittman has stated in the past that “people who provide abortions should be publicly hanged.”

Needless To Say…

A real pro-life movement is one that fights for livable wages, paid parental leave, universal childcare and education, healthcare for all, addresses poverty without criminalizing the poor in the process. It doesn’t hold paternalistic views about what’s best for other people. It’s one that realistically meets people where they’re at. It’s one that fights to end systemic racism and white supremacy culture and the multitude of ways they’re embedded in our society. It’s one that encourages people to be who they truly are and embraces cultural differences instead of forcing them to assimilate into the status quo to benefit a small portion of the population at the expense of others. A real pro-life movement is one that works to make the quality of life better for everyone, including pregnant people, transgender people, Black people and People of Color, disabled people, the incarcerated, the homeless, and so on. It’s one that works to educate our communities for the empowerment of everyone via mutual aid services, age-appropriate sexual education, harm reduction education, and meeting people where they’re at instead of shaming and guilt-tripping people for being human. It’s one that has compassion and empathy for people of different backgrounds instead of ridicule and animosity.

This is the reason it’s been referred to as the anti-abortion movement instead of the “pro-life” movement. This movement doesn’t advocate for making our material conditions better. They advocate for policy that directly causes the trauma and suffering of pregnant people and their loved ones while simultaneously increasing both the maternal and infant mortality rates, policy that criminalizes doctors and pregnant people, policy that disproportionately harms marginalized and vulnerable communities. They have a strict anti-abortion agenda rooted in, adjacent to, and working in tandem with the white supremacist agenda today.

The anti-abortion movement is not about protecting life. It never was. It was always about upholding white supremacy and enforcing rigid gender roles. It is about putting women and people capable of getting pregnant back in their place — motherhood and free domestic labor. It is about putting queer people back in the closet.

Let’s build the community we want to live in!

Join our Labor Working Group’s book club in collaboration with the Education Committee for our upcoming 7-week Worker Cooperative Workshop, based on the Rutgers Worker Cooperative Education Program.

Watch the Rutgers video series with us on Tuesdays at 7:00 pm or on your own before our discussion sessions on Saturdays at 11:00 am. See the schedule below for more details.

Schedule

Week 1: 

Tuesday, August 8, 2023 7:00 pm
Rutgers video: What is a Worker Cooperative? 

Saturday, August 12, 2023 11:00 am
DSA special presentation: The history of worker cooperatives

Week 2: 

Tuesday, August 15, 2023 7:00 pm
Rutgers video: Worker Cooperatives and African American Cooperative Economics: Origin […]

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On Monday, July 24, 2023, Columbus City Council voted 6-1 to approve the American Campus Communities / Blackstone development proposed at 50 West Lane Avenue.

Blackstone is the largest corporate landlord in history. They own thousands upon thousands of properties across the United States and abroad. They have earned international condemnation for their aggressive rent hikes and use of eviction as a profit-making scheme.

Now, City Council has given them a piece of our city–and are poised to sweeten the deal even further by handing over the public’s money in the form of tax abatements.

Despite so many community members testifying about Blackstone’s horrific human rights record and business practices–including its having been lambasted by the United Nations for its role in the global housing crisis–Council rolled out the red carpet to welcome them into our housing market. Even worse, Blackstone indicated that they intend to seek tax abatements for their trouble.

This is yet another example of Council weighing the business interest of a developer over the wellbeing of its constituents. It confirms our fear that Council’s purported “Housing for All” policies are a sham, meant only to placate voters while they continue to line corporations’ pockets with money lifted from our neighborhoods and schools.
For months, constituents flooded Columbus’s democratic channels with their fears over Blackstone coming into our city, providing written and spoken testimony at the University District Area Commission, the Development Commission, and finally, City Council. Of these bodies, only the Area Commission rejected the proposal, though City Council neglected to listen even to them.

Columbus DSA’s Housing Priority Campaign made it our responsibility to inform the public about Blackstone’s abysmal history and organize opportunities to speak out against them. We are so proud of the energy and tenacity the community supplied to our campaign. Columbus DSA will continue to oppose tax handouts for the rich so long as the working people of our city struggle to find housing that is affordable, dignified, and secure. We are sick of watching the working class get cut out of the deal. We are tired of seeing our schools gutted, our public services plundered, and our neighbors left to rot on the sidewalk. We are finished with the housing crisis being used as an excuse to build playgrounds for the wealthy instead of seeing our people safe. A bed for every person. A meal in every stomach. A city for every one of us. That is our future, and we are the ones to build it. Not Blackstone.

We’re starting to collect applications for the NTC Steering Committee for October 2023 through September 2024. The current interim SC will work with the newly elected NPC to appoint a group of interested members for this term.

If you’re interested please fill out this form by the end of August: https://airtable.com/shrHXUYPqRTTnzgzx

We’ll be sending this out in newsletters and elsewhere around the organization, feel free to share it with comrades you think may be good to help lead this group.

By Emil McDonald

On Saturday, July 22, 2023, fifty workers and community members rallied at San Francisco City Hall in solidarity with 340,000 UPS Teamsters. Since UPS walked away from the bargaining table earlier in the month, UPS workers had been busy preparing for a potential August 1 national strike with the potential to shut down 7 percent of U.S. GDP.

The tide had turned a day earlier, when UPS relented and agreed to return to the bargaining table. Just a few days later, on July 25, the union announced a tentative agreement (TA) for a new five-year contract. Members will be voting on whether to ratify the TA through August 22, and the strike deadline has been postponed. 

At the July 22 rally, Emil McDonald, a five-year UPS worker and member of Teamsters Local 315 in Richmond, CA, spoke about the changes that he saw in the union’s rank and file, and beyond, as a result of strike preparations. – The Editors

A UPS Teamster at the Local 315 “practice picket” in Richmond, July 20. (Photo: R. Marcantonio)

As many of you may know, on July 5th negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS broke down. UPS told our negotiating committee they had “nothing more to give.”  This is a company that recently paid more than $5 billion dollars in dividends to Wall Street and bought back $3.5 billion of its own stock so that executives and major shareholders could fatten their wallets. 

Not only do we know that UPS has a LOT more to give —- we’re gonna make sure they give it.  We’ve made it perfectly clear to UPS that if they can’t find the money to give our essential workers a living wage and reward some of the hardest working people in the country for the tens of billions of dollars we made them during the pandemic,  UPS executives will be putting their own company on strike and that profit faucet is gonna get shut off. 

Thank you all so much for being here and for supporting UPS Teamsters as we fight for a contract that will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers and bring historic change to our union.

The kind of change I’m talking about isn’t just union leadership that is willing to build a credible strike threat and go to the mat for our lowest-paid members. It is the experience of rank-and-file Teamsters put into motion, united with the community to win a good contract for ourselves. 

For the last few weeks, all over the country UPS Teamsters have been holding practice pickets outside of our hubs joined by DSA, PSL, Jobs with Justice, our friends and families–even some of our customers. 

Drivers I work with are asking me about these signs they keep seeing up out on road. In store windows, taped to peoples’ front doors—some have even taped the signs up inside their trucks. 

Your efforts are not going unnoticed. It is one thing to feel cheated or unappreciated as an individual worker. Everyone here has felt that and it sucks. But when you see that you are not alone and that you have brothers and sisters who are willing to fight with you and that the community has your backs — it can be a very powerful thing. 

The experience of banding together and fighting for something that’s right changes you. It cuts through all of the noise and the cultural divides that keep us powerless and disillusioned.  

A couple of Teamsters in my local — who to my knowledge had never attended a picket line before — came out to San Francisco this week to join academic workers at a rally at the UC Regents meeting.  This is the kind of change I’m talking about. Seeing yourself as part of a broader labor movement.  United we fight, divided we beg. 

Emil McDonald celebrates a successful practice picket with a co-worker (Photo: R. Marcantonio.)

Whatever happens between now and when we have a new UPS contract, the contract campaign over the last year has created hundreds if not thousands of new shop floor leaders in our union and given us experience organizing against one of the largest corporations in the United States.  This is something we will continue to build on in the coming years. Militant stewards will be born out of this fight.  Solidarity will be born out of this fight. Five years from now, when it’s time to negotiate the 2028 contract, we will be many times stronger and many times wiser from the start. 

And guess what?  It turns out maybe UPS does have something more to give than poverty wages. They must have checked their couch cushions and went to Coinstar because this week they reached out to our union requesting to go back to the table in an effort to avoid a strike.  

But when Sean O’Brien and our NorCal negotiators go back to the table next week they will not be alone.  They will be backed by the tens of thousands of Teamsters who attended practice pickets, 80,000 supporters who signed petitions demanding a living wage for part-time workers and the knowledge that our members — backed by our brothers and sisters in the labor movement and our communities —- are ready to strike if we have to to win what we deserve. 

Emil McDonald is a UPS Teamster and a member of Local 315 in Richmond, CA.

The delegation of the Houston chapter of the Democratic Socialists ofAmerica stands with the BDS Working Group in support of their proposed amendment to NPC Recommendation #8, “Make DSA an […]

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