What Norplant Taught Us About Reproductive Justice

The controversial birth control once used to police women’s bodies was a precursor to the current abortion rights fight

Illustration: Anshika Khullar

The assault on abortion rights is intense and multifaceted, from the slew of bills imposing severe restrictions and outright bans, to the Trump administration’s attempts to eliminate access to abortion services by changing Title X funding rules. Broad, contemptuous attacks on women’s autonomy like this have been a feature of political life for generations.

Running constantly alongside these blatant moves are attempts by misogynists in power to target or manipulate specific groups of women in even more insidious ways. Historically, however, pro-choice activism tended to focus on a more narrowly defined goal — the right to choose abortion — neglecting the ways that reproductive oppression works differently upon women in different communities.

I often go back to the Norplant controversy of the 1990s and its implications, not least because of how ghastly an example of injustice it is, and for how it illustrates the intertwining of racism and misogyny in controlling women’s bodily autonomy. Norplant was approved by the FDA in 1990. It consisted of six small bars that were inserted under the skin in the arm, a sort of get-it-and-forget it medication that was supposed to last five years.

Equally important as the right to not have a child is the right to have a child; the right to parent that child free of state oppression.

Soon after, a now infamous Philadelphia Inquirer editorial touted Norplant as a means to reduce the so-called Black underclass. While the Inquirer apologized after widespread outrage, the editorial merely said what many were thinking. For instance, a 1991 article in the New Republic, couching its eugenicism in moral concern for “inner city” children, said that while “interfering — however benevolently — with a woman’s reproductive system is of course abhorrent,” to get a handle on an epidemic of child abuse we should give Norplant a chance as a “practical” option.