Design and Visual Representation Final Project

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This project was completed under the advisment of Professor Terresa Moses at the University of Minnesota 2018

CONTENT 01

INTRODUCTION

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Prompt

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02

CONTEXT

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Cards Levels of Oppression

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DEFINE

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Thesis Research Literature Review Annotated Bibliography

15 16 30 44

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IDEATE

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Cards Quadrant Map

50 51

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PROTOTYPE

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Low Mid High

54 57 58

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IMPACT

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Cards Mural Board

69 70

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SUMMARY

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Reflection Team Member Journey Maps

73 74

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01 INTRODUCTION

PROJECT PROMPT:

Texas Abortion Law Black women face significant barriers in obtaining reproductive healthcare, including abortion services. How does the new abortion law (the abortion ban) in Texas affect Black women?

S.B. No. 8 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT relating to abortion, including abortions after detection of an unborn child ’s heartbeat; authorizing a private civil right of action.

By: Hughes, et al.

Throughout this book you’ll find cards scattered throughout. These cards contain key terms utilized from the Racism Untaught toolkit that helped guide our research and design solutions. The included photos are from various protests that are honest opinions, beliefs, and fears of people who suffer from the laws, policies, and structures currenty in place.

What better way to know what the public thinks than read their own words?

KEY TERM [Definition]

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01 CONTEXT At the beginning of this project, we found many key concepts that play into the power structure of abortion and abortion law. On the next page, you can see all of the terms we pulled before narrowing our focus.

Abortion Stigma Adultification Bias Anti-black racism Cognitive Dissonance Color Blindness Commodity Feminism Cultural Taxation Culture Erasure Derogatory Gendered Descriptors Entitlement Explicit Bias Gender role expectations Gene weathering Gentrification Historic Trauma Transmission Implicit bias Intellectual inferiority Intent over impact Male gaze Mansplaining Manterrupting Microaggression Microinvalidations Misogynior Misogyny Mom-shaming Performative allyship Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome Power Pregnancy Discrimination Prejudice Racial Gaslighting Redlining Sexist double standards Sexual Harassment Sexual politics Slut-shaming Stereotyping Tokenism Tone policing Unsolicited body comments White Mediocrity White alley fatigue White denial White gaze White privilege White rage White savior White solidarity White tears White washing Whiteness

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Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

Photo by James Eades on Unsplash Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

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Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

VICTIM BLAMING

OTHERING

OBJECTIFICATION

When the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them, also known as Victim Shaming (i.e. blaming sexual assault on a woman because of the clothes she was wearing)

To view or treat a Black, Indigenous, or person of color as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself also known as exclusion

The action of degrading someone to the status of a mere object

Conservative thought leaders often blame women for being sexually assaulted and falling pregnant. In a 2012 local news interview, former U.S. Representative from Missouri 2nd Congressional District, Todd Akin, said:

Iowa Representative Steve King once tweeted - then doubled-down on the following about BIPOC:

It’s very common for anti-choice legislaters to objectfy women. In 2017, Oklahoma representative Justin Huphrey was quoted as saying:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

This idea that it’s the victim’s fault not only for being sexually assulted, but also for conception (while simultanesoly implied that there is “illegitimate” rape), plays heavily into abortion law - especially for the 2021 iteration as it does not make exceptions for rape/incest.

“You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies. You’ve got to keep your birth rate up, and that you need to teach your children your values. In doing so, you can grow your population, you can strengthen your culture, and you can strengthen your way of life.”

King - stripped of any committies and congressional duties and later primaried by his own party - often utilized “othering” when fearmongering about anyone not white.

“I understand that they [women]feel like that is their body. I feel like it is a separate — what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’”

In 2021, North Carolina Congressment Madison Cawthorn referred to women as “earthen vessels sanctified by almighty God” in an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Photo by Ying Ge on Unsplash

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

PASSIVE RACISM

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

SYSTEMIC RACISM

Attitudes and actions that contribute to the maintenance of racism, without openly advocating violence or oppression

Racial discrimination that derives from individuals carrying out the dictates of a prejudiced Institution or society

Inequalities rooted in the systemwide operation of a society that exclude members of particular racial groups from significant participation in major social institutions

A historically common trope in media has been that of the “Angry Black Woman” - this harmful stereotype can be attributed to misogynior (a term coined in 2008 by Moya Bailey) attitudes - the specific hatred, dislike, distrust, and prejudice directed toward Black women. While not advocating directly for violence or oppression, misogynior can lead to things like tone policing and shutting down Black women when they try to speak about their experiences brushing them off as too emotional or an “Angry Black Woman” stereotype.

And if no one is actually listening to Black women, it is impossible for them to get the reproductive healthcare that they need.

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) writes that: “[We] recognize the impact of racism within the U.S. health care delivery system, which has historically engaged in the systematic segregation and discrimination of patients based on race and ethnicity, the effects of which persist to this day. Hospitals and clinics, which were once designated for racial and ethnic minorities, continue to experience significant financial constraints and are often under-resourced and improperly staffed. These issues result in inequities in access to and quality of health care and are major contributors to racial and ethnic health disparities. While segregation and discrimination based on race and ethnicity is no longer legal today, some organizations continue to discriminate based on insurance status, which also disproportionately impacts non-white populations.”

Healthcare as an institution is inherently racist and leaves Black women without the care they need.

From redlining neighborhoods to funding schools with property taxes, the legacy of overt racism is still alive within the system itself.

Redlining refers to the system used by banks and the real estate industry in the 20th century to determine which neighborhoods would get loans to buy homes, and neighborhoods where people of color lived — outlined in red ink — were deemed the riskiest to invest in; a less obvious form of segregation.

Generations later, with lower property values and therefore lower tax revenue generated, communities still lack robust education, transportation, and healthcare systems.

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LEVELS OF OPPRESSION

CULTURAL

Systems of norms, values, beliefs, and trusted systems of acquiring truth that preserve, protect and/or maintain oppression.

Meritocracy Meritocracy is a political system in which economic goods and/ or political power are vested in individual people on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement, rather than wealth or social class.

Advancement in such a system is based on performance, as measured through examination or demonstrated achievement. With that worldview in mind, anti-choice legislators often argue that any woman who gets pregnant should be able to afford the lifestyle required to raise a child - with just a little bit of hard work and determination regardless of what societal barriers there may be.

Purity Culture “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” (1 Thess. 4:38).

Often used when referring to Evangelical beliefs, “purity culture” attempts to promote a biblical view of purity by discouraging dating and promoting virginity before marriage, often through the use of tools such as purity pledges, symbols such as purity rings, and events such as purity balls. It can also go deeper into the roles and responsibilities of the binary genders, and often puts the onus of men’s sexual desire onto women.

Photo by Lukas Meier on Unsplash

The Prosperity Gospel “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

(John 9:1–3 ESV) Contrary to traditional Christian dogma - dramatized by the suffering of Job as a test of devotion and evidence of God’s love - The Prosperity Gospel, popularized by the Evangelical movement, asserts that material success and wealth are a reward for being “good Christians.”

Thinking that God punishes or rewards people for their deeds ties into the idea of pregnancy as a punishment for the action of having sex and that if a person cannot afford to raise a child, it must be a moral failing of their own.

Birth Control as a Woman’s Responsibility The word “birth control” is immediately associated with women, by design. As of 2021, there are no birth control methods on the market that compare to the daily hormonal pills, IUDs, or injections, that so many women have to endure - physically, emotionally, and financially. It wasn’t until The Affordable Care Act that health insurance providers were required to include coverage for birth control - if a person has health insurance, that is.

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Sex Education The American public education system is fractured. Most curriculum choices are left up to state departments of education, and sex education is often not required - being a decision made on the district level.

This leaves room for misinformation and misguided curriculum such as abstinence-only sex education or - at worst - no education about human reproduction at all.

Photo by chloe s. on Unsplash

PATRIARCHY A system of society or Government in which men hold the power and women are arely excluded from it

Patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.

The majority of the Republican Party members of the Texas state legislature are, in fact, men. White men. These men hold power, write laws, and dictate the lives of the women living in the state that they represent.

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INSTITUTIONAL

Structural oppression that results from agentic oppressive behavior

Wealth Inequity in Healthcare Rich men will always have access to abortion for their wives, daughters, and mistresses - regardless of what the law says. The nature of the American healthcare system is toxic at best, but even social services meant to provide access to lowerincome citizens is often under-funded at inaccessible to the most vulnerable populations.

Photo by Ameer Basheer on Unsplash

Abortion Laws When it comes to abortion, antichoice voters can be categorized as “single-issue” voters. While they could disagree with other party platforms, abortion is so crucial, they will always vote for those who promise to legislate against it. While Roe v. Wade currently requires that women have access to safe abortions and that there cannot be any “undue burden,” state legislatures often pass controversial - and borderline illegal laws in order for them to be contested in the Supreme Court; their ultimate goal to overturn Roe v. Wade and enact full abortion bans.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

AGENTIC ACTION Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

BELIEFS

Shame Shame is a powerful tool of control: shaming women for their sexuality, family choices, reproductive health and status leave women susceptible to manipulation.

Protesting + Violence at Women’s Health Centers At least 11 people have been killed in attacks on abortion clinics in the United States since 1992. The most memorable might be the 2015 attack on the Colorado Springs clinic by an assault-rifle-carrying gunman who rambled about “no more baby parts” - thought to be inspired by the Center for Medical Progress’ complex hoax where they formed the fake company Biomax Procurement Services, secretly recorded talks with Planned Parenthood employees, and released a manipulative cut, asserting that Planned Parenthood was selling “baby parts.”

Hyper-sexualization of Black Women Black women are often subject to a frustrating (to put it mildly) dichotomy: they don’t fit the “traditional” norms of “sexy”, i.e. white, blonde, etc., but are simultaneously fetishized and considered “exotic” - beginning at a disturbingly early age. This leads to people blaming young black girls for being “promiscuous,” regardless of circumstances, and laying any and all blame on them.

“God’s Will” “Abortion is Murder” These two personal beliefs tend to go hand-in-hand. Many conservatives believe that their god has an ultimate plan and that “everything happens for a reason.” So therefore it was “God’s Will” that a pregnancy happens - no matter how it happens.

And once someone is pregnant, abortion is out of the question - they believe abortion is murder. Harsher still, some anti-choice activists argue that the threshold for “murder” starts at fertilization while others argue implantation. Much earlier than the misleading “heart beat” bills that claim a fetus has cardiac activity at six weeks.

“The most disrespected woman in America, is the black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman.”

Malcolm X, 1964

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03 DEFINE

THESIS How might design be utilized to craft satire towards advocating for universal healthcare, allowing for the push towards vasectomies as the main form of contraception, thereby simultaneously removing the burden of reproductive responsibility from Black women and providing them with affordable access to care.

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Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

ACTION

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

CHANGE

Abolish blatant discrimination against black women

Clear/ease the taboo & prejudice

Teach about the effects of racism in the system and how it can affect the population

Allow black woman to feel safe

Ensure healthcare to more than just wealthy families Explain the science behind abortion Educate voters Expose (BIPOC) voter suppression

Give the people (black women speicifcally) their voice Empower women to make their own decisions about their body Make healthcare more accessible to more people Safety for women

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

STAKEHOLDERS Texas conservatives Misogynistic old white men Religious entities Texas lawmakers Voters

LEGAL BACKGROUND 16

There are two major legal landmarks that can be considered the foundation of all future abortion legislation and action in the state of Texas. By exploring the the history of legislation and funding throughout modern abortion-debate history, we can see the motivations and reasoning legislators use to enact control, thereby providing insight into how to craft oppositional messaging.

Texas Abortion Facility Reporting and Licensing Act of 1989 The first crucial landmark legislation was an act that required abortion facilities to gather specific demographic information about any woman who recieved an abortion, among other regulations. This data, the Induced Termination of Pregnancy (ITOP), is readily available on the Texas Health and Human Services department website - though the data was only digitized beginnging in 2008. Charting this data by race and year shows that the legislaters got what they wanted: a reduction in overall abortions performed. At least on paper. What the data doesn’t show is what happened to women who wanted an abortion but couldn’t gain access to one and the children they were forced to bear.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Alternatives to Abortion (A2A) 2006-07 General Appropriations Act, Senate Bill 1, 79th Legislature, Regular Session, 2005 The second crucial cornerstone of the anti-choice movement in Texas is the funding bill “Alternatives to Abortion.” This bill provides funding to “crisis pregnancy centers” - though the true distribution of funds is murky at best. It wasn’t until 2017 that the contractors were required to report what they were doing with the money. The subcontractor process is considered a “secret.”

The four major recipients include the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, Human Coalition, Austin LifeCare, Longview Wellness.

The act was set to distribute roughly $100 million in 2021 and has a history of pulling funds from other programs concerning things like air quality and health technology.

Due to the lack of accountability and fiscal reporting, there is no evidence that the program has has tangible, positive effects.

Photo by Taylor Brandon on Unsplash

CRITICAL RACE THEORY A theoretical framework in the social sciences that uses critical theory to examine society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers Crisis pregnancy centers may look like medical clinics; they may even use the word “clinic” in their names - many are located close to real abortion clinics. They advertise that they provide pregnancy counseling and information about abortion and pregnancy, and they usually offer free pregnancy testing. Their websites and advertisements often use the same words and pictures as real abortion clinics. People working there may be wearing scrubs and stethoscopes, and there may even be a nurse on staff. Some even provide testing for sexually transmitted infections. But they do not provide abortions; most don’t provide any medical care at all. In fact, they actively discourage people from accessing abortion and birth control.

Shown here are the four homepages of the four crisis pregnancy centers that recieve the most funding from Alternatives to Abortion (ACA) - a few have rebranded. And with the exception of the Human Coalition, you wouldn’t know that they believe all pregnancies should be carried to term. These centers often target Women of color, as evidenced by their ambiguous choices of models, and those with lower incomes, promising support throughout the prgnancy, but never after.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

CODING Organzing and analyzing qualitative data points

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80,000

Shown here is the Induced Termination of Pregnancy (ITOP) data taken from the Texas Department of Human Services website - required starting in 1989 (though the digital records only go back to 2008) via the Texas Abortion Facility Reporting and Licensing Act. The accompanying text shows various abortion laws enacted during this time, with critical years in red on the chart. It’s easy to see the ripple effect of restrictive abortion law.

WHITE

60,000

ASIAN HISPANIC BLACK

40,000

NATIVE AMERICAN 20,000

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Legislation Over Time 2003 Women’s Right to Know Act sets requirements that physicians must follow during the informed consent process for abortion. Information has been found to be misleading or manipulative 2005 Texas banned abortions after 24 weeks and also enacted a requirement of parental consent for people under 18 seeking an abortion.

2011 Texas enacted a mandatory sonogram law requiring a person seeking an abortion to undergo a sonogram at least 24 hours before the abortion procedure. The law requires doctors to display the sonogram, make the fetal heartbeat audible, and give a verbal explanation of the result of the sonogram.

2013 Texas passed House Bill 2, or “HB2” as it is commonly known, an omnibus abortion bill that imposed several

2008

2009

2010

2015: Texas heightened the 2016: Texas's state he burden of proof for a minor clinics to pay extra mo additional restrictions on abortion: Doctors mustthe have seeking judicial bypass and tissue resulting fro admitting privileges at the a hospital of the restricted minor’s within options30 milesReproductive rights ad abortion facility. afterbypass 20 weeks for Abortion seeking judicial in post-fertilization this law as unrelated t is banned, unless a patient at risk fetus a county other is than theirof death or the of the patient, and a c has a severe medical problem.

Doctors administering home county. stopped the law from

medication abortion must follow a state-mandated protocol. All abortion facilities must meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers (mini-hospitals), even if a 2019: Theabortion Texas Legislature passedpills a bantoon government affili facility only provides by providing swallow.

providers or their affiliates, Senate Bill 22. The bill prevents gov

entering into partnerships or providing any assistance to clinic 2015 with abortion providers, evenfor if they do not provide abortion t Texas heightened the burden of proof a minor seeking off vital support to communities who rely on judicial bypass and restricted the minor’s options forthese low-cost cl carebypass like birth gynecological cancer screenings seeking judicial in control, a county other thanexams, their home county.

2016 Texas’s state health agency required clinics to pay extra money to bury or cremate the tissue resulting from an abortion. Reproductive rights advocates challenged this law as unrelated to the health and safety of the patient, and a court agreed and stopped the law from going into effect.

Abortion Numbers

by Race in Texas

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2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2019: Texas passed House Bill 16, which criminalized abortion ealth agency required 2017: Texas banned the safest and most common providers who do not provide medical treatment to a fetus if oney to bury or cremate procedure for second-trimester abortions, forcing affiliated with providers, if they that do not 2017 born abortion after an abortion.

This even is a situation is virtually om an abortion. doctors to either use experimental procedures are or stop provide abortion themselves.

This cuts off vital support to after 20 Texas banned the safest and most common procedure impossible in Texas because abortions are banned dvocates challenged providing second-trimester abortions altogether. communities who rely on these low-cost clinics for basic for second-trimester abortions, forcing doctors to either weeks and a fetus is not viable until 24 weeks. To that end, to the health and safety Reproductive rights advocates challenged this law as health care like birth control, exams, cancer in 2013, useand experimental procedures or stop providing secondsince Texas began gynecological collecting data on the procedures court agreed an undue burden on the right to abortion, and a court screenings, and diabetes testing. trimester abortions altogether.

Reproductive rights there is not a single recorded instance of this happening. going into effect. agreed and stopped the law from going into effect.

advocates challenged this law as an undue burden on the right to abortion, and a court agreed and stopped the law 2021 from going into effect. legislature Bill 8,inapregnancy, law that bans 2021: The state legislature passed Senate Bill 8,The a lawstate that bans abortionpassed as earlySenate as six weeks before many iation with abortion abortion as early as sixprivate weeksindividuals in pregnancy, manyto “enforce” people know they are pregnant. This unprecedented law also authorizes to filebefore civil lawsuits vernment2019 entities from know — they are pregnant.

This unprecedented law — to sue the unconstitutional abortion ban. This scheme people allows anyone a relative, an abusive partner, or even a stranger cs that areTexas affiliated authorizes private individuals file civil lawsuits to from passed Housethe Billhealth 16, which criminalized abortion care provider and seek a court orderalso that would block the patient’s abortionto and prevent the provider themselves.

This cutswho do not the unconstitutional ban.

Thishunting schemeby offering providers provide medical treatment to a fetus six“enforce” performing any abortion after approximately weeks in pregnancy.

The law also abortion incentivizes bounty linics for basic health allows anyone —sues a relative, an abusive orwho even if born after an abortion.

This is a situation that$10,000 is virtually money “damages” of at least to anyone who successfully an abortion providerpartner, or anyone “aids and s, and diabetes testing.in Texas because a stranger — toinsue the health care provider and seek impossible abortions are abortion banned after afterapproximately abets” someone seeking six weeks pregnancy. a court order that would block the patient’s abortion 20 weeks and a fetus is not viable until 24 weeks. To that and prevent the provider from performing any abortion end, since Texas began collecting data on the procedures after approximately six weeks in pregnancy. The law also in 2013, there is not a single recorded instance of this incentivizes bounty hunting by offering money “damages” happening. of at least $10,000 to anyone who successfully sues an abortion provider or anyone who “aids and abets” 2019 someone seeking abortion after approximately six weeks The Texas Legislature passed a ban on government affiliation with abortion providers or their affiliates, Senate in pregnancy.

Bill 22. The bill prevents government entities from entering into partnerships or providing any assistance to clinics that

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In researching the history of abortion, we found many cultural artifacts that signified abortion rights in relation to black women. Many artifcats focused on the biggest proetest, and riots for abortion rights since they are the most notable.

The pictures also represented slogans such as “My life, not yours", "Keep your laws off my body", and "My body my terms". These were notable in regards to the fact that the abortion laws signfied men controlling women hence the slogans revolve around my terms and my body.

CULTURAL ARTIFACTS 2

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Two anti-abortion protesters climbed on top a wall at St. Louis University’s campusduring an abortion rights protest. The groups were protesting a talk at the university by U.S. Rep. Henry J. Hyde, a Republican from Illinois, who sponsored a bill to ban federal funds for abortions.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

CULTURAL ARTIFACTS Developing and understanding of artifacts used in a particular culture, why they are used, and what they mean to relevant sociocultural groups

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DECEMBER 1 , 2021: Roe vs Wade goes before the Supreme Court

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2021: Abortion rights protest in Texas after ban passes

1977: Abortion protesers on SLU’s campus

Post-Dispatch archive photo

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Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

CULTURE OF PREJUDICE The theory that prejudice is embedded in our culture

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2021 - Abortion rights protest in Texas after ban passes

2019 - Abortion rights protest in downtown Chris Riddle joins in chants with marchers as they circle Memorial Plaza Park during the Protest for Reproductive rights on Saturday, May 25, 2019 on Market Street in St. Louis.

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Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

GENDER ESSENTIALISM A concept used to examine the attribution of fixed, intrensic, innate qualities to women and men

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SOCIAL CONTRACT AND INTERSECTIONALITY 1869

Abortion was condemned by churches

1873

Abortion drugs were banned

1880

1890

23 (white) women were discouraged from getting abortion to make sure white people would dominate the population.

AMA advocated for the removal of midwives

Maternity homes refused black women

Depression

Media campaigns

Control of women’s sexual freedom

physicians who performed abortions were expelled

Media campaigns

1920

1929

1933 Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

1940

ERAS MAP

Abortion clinics raid to make up for misktakes in 20s and 30s

Abortion is legal

1960

Abortion is illegal

1973

Roe v Wade

1992

Planned Parenthood vs Casey

Supreme court reaffirmed the constitutionally protected liberty of the woman to decide to have an abortion before the fetus attains viability

2016

Texas Abortion restrictions

U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Texas Abortion Restrictions

A visual that provides historical context to the subject being studied, mapping distinct eras into the context and describing them across topics of interest.

Social Contract Theory

Hobbes

Locke

Rousseau

Rawls

Gauthier

Humans are self-interested. It would be brutal to leave them in State of Nature

Everything belongs to God, and it must be protected

Social contract protects those with lots of private property

Social contract is constrained by 2 principles of justice

Benefiting others is also benefiting oneself

There has to be a contract to ensure they can live together.

A sovereign is needed to enforce the contract

Human lives belong to God. If this protection is lost, one must fight for it (even against the government)

Inequalities can be just if the most disadvantaged is still better off than they would be under alternative arrangements.

liberal individual enters into the social contract as a means by which to maximize his own interests

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

CONCEPT MAP A digram depicting suggested relationships between concepts or ideas

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It is worth looking into the Texas Abortion ban which asserts control over the women’s bodies, under the lenses of the Social contract theory and Intersectionality theory. The former is a theory about how people can live together in a society under a predetermined agreement, while the latter discusses the combined impacts that an individual faces because of who they are and the society they live in. These theories are relevant in the conversation about the abortion ban, especially if one is to consider the experience of black women in a system that is built and run predominantly by white men.

The idea of a contract that determines how a society should function has long been discussed by philosophers as early as Socrates’ time, and coincidentally, these philosophers are all men. The most famous interpretations of the social contract theory are written by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Rawls, and David Gauthier.

Hobbes advocated for a sovereign being as the enforcer of the social contract, since the society may become chaotic if people have to fight for the limited resources. In contrast, Locke believed a sovereign wasn’t crucial, but the order depends

Racial Contract

Feminist opposition

Mills

Pateman

Baier

Who gets to be considered “full moral and political person”?

The social contract is the means by which partriarchy is upheld

Gauthier’s liberal individual doesn’t consider children and women who take care of them

greatly on faith - since everyone and everything belongs to God, and one is not to hurt God’s possessions, one must not do harm to others. These two philosophers’ views, though old, are still present in the argument for the abortion ban. First, anti-abortion activists can use Locke’s theory to argue that abortion is the killing of babies whose lives belong to God. Then, they advocate for the ban, because the role of the government is to protect the established order, by Hobbes’ theory.

French enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau offered a more critical view of the role of the social contract and its enforcement.

According to Rousseau, private properties have not only increased inequality, but also made humanbeing become greedy. The social contract, therefore, is only created to protect the rich from being robbed while leaving room for them to gain more wealth by oppressing others.

Rousseau’s view is important, because it suggests that abiding to the social contract is not necessarily

the best thing for the society, especially if it is founded upon an oppressive structure.

John Rawls is a modern philosopher who worked on the social contract theory. Rawls based the social contract on two main principles of justice: firstly, everyone is entitled to as much liberty as possible as long as they all have equal liberty, as secondly, inequality can be justified if the least advantaged members are still better off than they would be if they were in a different arrangement. In other words, in Rawls’ belief, immigrants to America will have to accept inequality, because presumably the move to America is already an improvement from where they were before. This view is problematic because it supports the idea that the current system should continue to be enforced, although it was created by Europeans who came to America and stole the land from the Native Americans. Rawls received criticism from Charles Mills, who argued that only a certain group of people, specifically white men, can be

Texas Abortion Ban 2021 - All abortions, either surgical or medical, have to be done in ambulatory surgical centers.

- Doctors performing either surgical or medical abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic.

- Abortions are banned about 6 weeks of pregnancy, no exception for rape or incest.

Impacted people

Intersectionality Theory

Crenshaw the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism

Being black + being women < Being black women

- People who can’t afford to go to qualified center - Rape victims ...

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

INTERSECTION THEORY

Women of colors’ experience access to healthcare

career

Black women’s experience from history

sexual harassment

role in policy making process

documentation

discrimination

misogyny / sexism

education opportunities

A theory that suggests that we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes.

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considered fully moral and political, and can take part in creating the social contract. The social contract, therefore, keeps others members in the society from realizing their suppressed rights and the political reality. This theory is known as the racial contract theory.

Another modern take on the social contract theory is that of David Gauthier. While he mostly agreed with Rawls, Gauthier added that rationality would keep people abiding to the agreement, and serving one’s interests in this agreement would also serve others’ interests. Gauthier’s view is criticized by feminists, as it centers an average “man”, while it ignores women and the fact that women are expected to care for children. In other words, it is easier for men to comply with the social contract, for the contract itself is written around men’s experience.

This argument is similar to the issue of the abortion ban, as it was about the control of the women’s bodies while it was decided by men. And among the people that are affected by this ban,

women of color and black women could be the one who feel the most impact.

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Intersectionality theory says that black women’s experience of discrimination based on race and sex cannot be separate.

By looking at black women as simply being black, one is ignoring the intersectional challenges of being women and being black at the same time, which is more than the sum of sexism and racism. If one thinks the abortion ban affects women in general, one is undermining the effect it has on the group who are marginalized, and have limited access to healthcare and qualified clinics. This group happens to be disproportionately women of color.

By evaluating whom this abortion ban affects the most, one may be able to tell if the system is targeting a specific group of people.

Photo by Kalea Morgan on Unsplash

SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY The view that a persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon an agreement among them to form the society in which they live.

PEDAGOGY Culturally Relevant Pedagogy What is it? It is the philosophical outlook towards one’s approach to teaching that informs the what, the how, and the why. For our topic, we looked at teaching as the passing of information. Since this is the main aspect of media, we connected this theory to the popular media research method.

While doing research on the abortion law and Black women, it was found that media usually takes a one-sided view and it does not look at the cultural relevance of the topic. Some media sources are not looking at both sides of the issue and how it affects everyone, therefore people that view these media sources are only being taught one sided view.

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Photo by Chris Boese on Unsplash

CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY The investigation of one’s approach to teaching and how that intersects with culture

What did our research find in reference to the media?

We investigated 6 different news outlets. We looked at right leaning, centralist, and left leaning outlets from resources found in the University of Michigan Library. The library has a resource for a website called AllSides.com that looked into a large amount of news sources and rated their bias. From this website we were able to research the topics of

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Texas abortion law. Not only did we search the Texas abortion law, but we also searched terms like pro-choice, pro-life, women, and black women with a focus on abortion to see how they handled these topics.

In the figure on the next spread, you see the different titles for articles from these news sources.

Breitbart Breitbart, a right learning news outlet, had. When searching for the different terms mentioned before, we saw different articles that used terms like brutal and grusome killings of unborn children, images of someone holding a hanger with the headline “Belgium to pay for women in Poland to Have Abortions Abroad”.

The Blaze The Blaze, another right leaning news outlet, we can see the same theme as Breitbart. They talk about “killing unborn children” and although they discuss how AOC (Alexandria OcasioCorez) talks about how Planned Parenthood have saved lives, they mostly focus on how many abortions Planned Parenthood has done.

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

POPULAR MEDIA SEARCH

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Searching popular forms of media to gain further context

Understanding what already exists that might compare or be similar to your work (i.e. competitors)

The Wall Street Journal and BBC News Now shifting more into the Centrist news sources, we have the Wall Street Journal and BBC News. When looking at these media sources, we can see the shift in themes. We have an article on BBC News that miscarriage rates are over 40% higher in Black women.

They actually go into detail what causes miscarriages and what help can be offered.

CRP and Media Conclusion Returning to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, we looked as teaching as the passing of information. Media must do a better job of understanding people’s cultural background and what might cause someone to get an abortion. Rather than just talking about how babies are gruesomely or brutally being murdered, talk about why African American communities account for such a large percentage of abortions and how it can be fixed.

Washington Post and New York Times One final shift to the left, we have media sources like Washington Post and New York Times. For example, in the article titled Dear conservatives: Abortion clinics don’t ‘target’ the black community it discusses how people insist that abortion clinics are targeting Black communities since African American communities account for 40 percent of abortions.

The article states that “failing to mention the underlying context behind those numbers demonstrates a disturbing lack of awareness of the impact of poverty and the realities faced by black women in America”.

Overall, that article does a great job on showing why Black women are getting abortions by digging deep into the problem. (45 percent of women were on public assitance.66% had household incomes below the federal poverty line).

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Faith-based Racism Within Women’s Healthcare and the Effects on Black Women Abstract

Texas leads the nation in extensive anti-abortion legislation. These policies disproportionately impact women of color. This research focuses on the long-lasting effects on Black women and how the historical, legal, psychological, capitalistic, and evangelical systems power the cruel cycle of attempting to control Black women’s bodies.

Introduction On May 5, 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill No. 8 into law, effectively banning abortion after 6 weeks. The law went into effect September 1, 2021 and was temporarily halted by order of U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman on October 6, 2021. The bill, termed “The Heartbeat Act,” marks the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period as the beginning of the “gestational age.” Abortion, including due to rape or incest, after the six-week mark - as determined by gestational age - was banned. The only exception included extreme

cases of the mother’s health and required the attending physician to document the case, permanently adding it to the patients’ health file.

This particular law skirts around “undue burden” - established in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)1, where the Supreme Court upheld Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)2, and the precedent often used by the courts to halt extreme restriction - by putting the onus of enforcement on citizens and civil court. Any person, except local or state government employees, can bring a civil suit against: anyone seeking (intent included, not just action) an abortion, anyone performing an abortion, and anyone who aids and abets either party “whether the person knew or should have known.” The claimant can then receive “no less than” $10,000, in addition to court and lawyer fees.3 This is not the first restrictive abortion bill Texas has passed, however. One of the earliest and most foundational was the Texas Abortion Facility Reporting and Licensing Act of 1989.4 This act required facilities must collect and report certain information: the license status of the facility; patient’s year of birth, race, marital status, 1 Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.” Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1991/91-744. Accessed 14 Oct. 2021.

2 Jane ROE, et al., Appellants, v. Henry WADE. https://www.law. cornell.edu/supreme court/text/410/113 3 TX SB8 | 2021-2022 | 87th Legislature | Enrolled; https://legiscan. com/TX/text/SB8/id/2395961 4 HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE; TITLE 4. HEALTH FACILITIES SUBTITLE B. LICENSING OF HEALTH FACILITIES; CHAPTER 245. ABORTION FACILITIES; Sec. 245.001. SHORT TITLE. 1989, 71st Leg., ch. 678, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1989. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/htm/ HS.245.htm

state and country of residence; type of abortion procedure; date abortion was performed; post-operative status of patient and cause of death when applicable; period of gestation at time of procedure; date of patient’s last menstrual cycle; number of previous live births to patient; number of previous abortions performed on patient. This information provided lawmakers with the data to tailor future anti-choice legislation.

In 2003, Texas passed the “Women’s Right to Know Act”5, which required a woman’s doctor to provide certain information dictated by the state, wait 24 hours before the abortion procedure, and required any abortion after 16 weeks “post-fertilization” to be performed in an Ambulatory Surgical Center(ASC). ASCs require a stringent code applicable to construction or re-purposing; many requirements were simply unobtainable: parking spaces to staff/patient ratios, square footage of closets, postoperative recovery suites when there was no operation performed, among others. Out of Texas’ 54 non-hospital abortion providers, none met the standard of an ambulatory surgical center when the law took effect.

In 2005, the legislature passed multiple different bills regarding abortion access and funding, including the “late-term” abortion ban and requiring pregnant people under 18 years of age to have written 5 Woman’s Right to Know Act, H.B. No. 15 (2003). https://capitol. texas.gov/tlodocs/78R/billtext/pdf/HB00015I.pdf#navpanes=0

Photo via Office of the Governor Greg Abbott Facebook page

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after signing an abortion bill into law, surrounded by mosty white men - with white women placed near the front.

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parental consent before receiving and abortion. In 2011, a law was passed requiring physicians to perform a sonogram, and verbally explain what they are seeing, before administering any abortion procedure.

In 2013, House Bill (HB) 2 was an omnibus abortion bill that required doctors to have admitting privileges (struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016) at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion facility, banned abortion after 20 weeks post-fertilization (unless medial risk), mandated new protocol for administering the abortion pill, and all abortion facilities must meet the standards of

ambulatory surgical centers (struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016), even if a facility only provides abortion by giving women pills to swallow. According to Grossman et al., “In just 1 year, the number of facilities providing abortion in Texas declined by 46%, vast swaths of the state were left without a provider and the number of women required to travel great distances to reach a provider increased dramatically. Over the same year, the state abortion rate declined by 13%” (20146). after the 2013 omnibus bill passed.

6 Grossman, Daniel, et al. “Change in Abortion Services after Implementation of a Restrictive Law in Texas.” Contraception, vol. 90, no. 5, 2014, pp. 496–501. Crossref, doi:10.1016/j. contraception.2014.07.006.

There were relatively minor additions to the law in 2015 and 2016; the next greatest hindrance to seeking abortion was in 2017 where legislation banned insurers from including coverage for abortion in a comprehensive health insurance plan, requiring women to purchase separate coverage for abortion care.

Texas’ history of abortion legislation showcases the lawmaker’s hostility to women’s reproductive healthcare.

The question that guides our research, however, is how Black women are specifically targeted: through legislation, healthcare, psychology, and the media.

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Photo via Vanity Fair archives

History of Abortion Legislation and Anti-abortion Campaigns in the United States

This is not the first time there has been a ban on abortion in the United States. In 1880, laws were passed to every state to criminalize abortions, except therapeutic abortions that were needed to save the women’s lives.7 While the persistence of abortion from before and throughout the ban shows the need for abortion among women of all races, religions, social classes, and marital statuses, it also shows that there existed “an alternative popular morality” that, 7 Leslie Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime : Women, Medicine, and Law In the United States, 1867-1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 7.

in conflict with the laws and antiabortion campaigns, supported women who had abortions.8 The anti-abortion campaigns throughout history, on the other hand, seem to be concerned more with control and politics than with women’s safety and wellbeing.

In late 19th century, after the laws were passed, a group of doctors in the American Medical Association (AMA), all of whom were white men, suggested that abortion was “a crime against God and humanity.”9 It was also against the “Christian duty” of doctors. As a result, they accused 8 Ibid, 46.

9 Ibid, 82.

physicians who performed abortions of “degrading their profession”, and demanded that they be prosecuted.10 This caused a split in the medical society, as some physicians were protected by their colleagues while some were ousted and expelled.11 The anti-abortion activists within the Chicago Medical Society even formed cooperation with state officials to detect and arrest midwives and physicians who performed abortions.12 While the public education campaign on the surface claimed to re-educate the public about abortions, it suppressed information, 10 Ibid, 80.

11 Ibid, 87.

12 Ibid, 88.

Suggestive advertisement for the use of Beecham's Pills as an abortifacient. The text at the bottom notes that the pills "assist nature in her wondrous functions".

Wikipedia

and spread terror through false and exaggerated information. As part of the campaign to suppress abortions, the Chicago Medical Society advised the Chicago daily newspaper to “refuse all advertisements which concerned the treatment of female complaints,” and in doing so they intentionally ignored the women’s needs. 13The media also drew a strong comparison between abortions and deaths. For example, the Chicago Times associated the concept “infanticide”, which is the killing of infants in France, with abortions.14 The images of murdering cherished babies caused shock and fear to the city.15 Fear and hostility was further exploited by anti-abortion activists in their campaign, as Dr. Horatio Storer, the campaign leader, suggested that the drop in white American birth rate can cost their political advantages to immigrants.16 Resonating with Storer, the Times wrote, “Is the Anglo-Saxon-American race to be driven out by the healthy sons and daughters of Celtic, Teutonic, and Latin origin?” as a way to evoke white Protestant’s fear of Catholics and immigrants, thus discouraged them from getting abortion.17 The anti-abortion campaign didn’t only aim to change the way American viewed abortion, but it also carried the cultural and political agenda pushed by the authority.

Around the 1920s, the anti-abortion activists continued to emphasized the lethality of abortions, and they were advocating for the

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13 Ibid 14 Ibid, 51.

15 Ibid, 51.

16 Ibid,11.

17 Ibid, 50.

Female Remedies Installation, New York Historical Society

Faced with limited birth control & illegal abortion, women bought pills marketed with coded language about “restoring & regulating menstrual function” or named after plants known to terminate pregnancy.

New York Historical Society

control of women’s sexual freedom, and the removal of midwives. They believed that women’s sexual freedom caused the need for abortions, and midwives’ lack of professionalism led to the women’s deaths.18 From 1890 to the 1930s, women became more independent thanks to their participation in the workforce, and they started breaking the old rules that controlled their sexual behavior, allowing them to enjoy and even celebrate sexual pleasure separated from procreation and marriage.19 Anti-abortion activists portrayed this new sexual liberty as “the danger of sex”, and proposed it should be controlled to avoid the need for abortions.20 The claim that women’s sexual freedom was to blame for the cause of abortion could also be refuted by statistics, which showed that in the 1920s, women who got abortions came from all races, social classes, religions, and most of them were married.21 The campaign was more about the control of women’s sexual freedom.

At the same time, activists and female doctors also advocated for removing midwives, arguing that female doctors could do midwives’ job better than the midwives could, which was “offering women patients during childbirth or gynecological procedures special feminine sympathy, modesty, and safety in a feminine atmosphere free of the fear of sexual impropriety.”22 This ban on midwives affected immigrant women, who tended 18 Ibid, 90.

19 Ibid, 91.

20 Ibid, 92.

21 Ibid, 23.

22 Ibid, 92.

to choose midwives over doctors.23 These campaigns’ motives could be questioned, especially because the majority of the medical profession soon shifted their focus to battling the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Act which provided “federal matching funds to the states to improve maternal and infant health.” 24As Reagan concluded, “physicians feared government control of medicine and the loss of private-paying patients more than midwives who served the poor.”25

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The motive of anti-abortion campaign shows inconsistency throughout the history, and it can be seen again in the flux of abortion clinics raids in the 40s and 50s. During this period, prosecutors prioritized going after clinics that had been endorsed by the medical community as safe places for women to get their abortion.26 Strictly suppressing abortion was the U.S.’ attempt to increase 23 Ibid, 101.

24 Ibid, 110.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid, 161.

Women could buy pills that promised to “regulate menstruation” from a pharmacy or through the mail.

New York Historical Society

self-induced abortions by methods such as “ingestion of bluing and starch or gunpowder and whiskey,” which was unsafe and could be deadly.31 The impacts on black women expose the hypocritical and discriminatory motive behind these anti-abortion campaigns.

In 1973, Roe v. Wade declared that a woman has the decision whether to keep or terminate her pregnancy.

White Evangelicalism Even with the passing of Roe. V. Wade, however, the evangelical right found themselves uninterested in abortion legislation and considered it a “Catholic issue.” Evidenced by Mary Louise Smith, the chair of the Republican national Committee in 1976 (dubbed ‘The Year of the Evangelical’ (Kucharsky, 1976))32, who openly supported abortion rights (though many of her views were later considered a threat to the Republican party). Republican leadership soon realized, however, that they use the liberalization of abortion laws to their favor:

Phyllis Schlafly is considered a critical actor in the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Ammendment

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the population, as this was the goal pointed out by New York judge Anna Kross in 1942.27 The Ladies Home Journal called for women to have more babies to fix the mistakes of the 20s and 30s in which the need for abortion rose, while the authority seemed to have turned a blind eye on it.28 During the Depression, many women had to leave home and motherhood for the workplace, and employers’ tendency to fire women upon discovering their pregnancies meant women needed to abort to keep their jobs.29 Out of economic necessity, apparently abortions were temporarily accepted.

While the targets of these anti-abortion campaigns varied, the impacts were felt the most heavily among women of colors and black women. Poverty and discrimination were important factors that led to black women’s decision to get abortions, but poverty and discrimination also limited their access to physicians and midwives, which further damaged their wellbeing and threatened their lives. For example, the shame associated with bearing an illegitimate child in late 19th century prompted women to get abortion, so maternity homes were open to provide support and adoption arrangement; yet, many of these homes refused Black women.30 Their lack of access to physicians and midwives forced them to have 27 Ibid, 163.

28 Ibid, 163.

29 Ibid, 152.

30 Ibid, 28.

“They began to view ‘abortion on demand’ as a symptom of the sexual revolution, the feminist movement, and cultural liberalism, Republicans became less supportive of abortion rights, and they became more amenable to the demands of party strategists who believed that a strong stand against abortion would bring Catholics into the GOP” (Williams, 2011, 514). 33 With the goal of motivating conservatives to vote Republican, early abortion legislation was a cornerstone of the religious right we know today.

Evangelicalism’s power has grown from the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1942. Some attribute this growth to the church’s ability to draw leaders from different sectors, as well as the special initiatives they have launched in the past 40 years (Lindsay, 2008).34 Regardless of how they got their power, the Evangelical right played a large part in the 2016 presidential primaries and, later, the election.

The power of that Evangelical religious right is clearly evidenced in the Texas legislature: in the 2005 Texas legislative session, lawmakers created the “Alternatives to Abortion” program – a program that in the next two years will cost taxpayers over $100 million. It was not until 2017 that contractors for the state were required to give a public report on what they were doing with the money 31 Ibid, 43.

32 Kucharsky, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1976/october-22/year-ofevangelical-76.html 33 Williams, Daniel K. 2011. “The GOP’s Abortion Strategy: Why Pro-Choice Republicans Became Pro-Life in the 1970s.” Journal of Policy History 23 (4): 513–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898030611000285.

34 Lindsay, D Michael. n.d. “Evangelicals in the Power Elite: Elite Cohesion Advancing a Movement,” 23.

The CDC found that two thirds of all pregnancyrelated deaths can be prevented. They launched the “Hear Her.” campain in an attempt to combat this crisis. Shown here are a few of the downloadable graphics available for anyone to share across social media. Note the visual emphasis on Black women.

awarded. In 2019, Republican lawmakers attempted to award a no-bid contract to the Texas Pregnancy Care Network – the largest of the A2A contractors. Additional contractors include Human Coalition, Austin LifeCare, and Longview Wellness. Human Coalition’s website claims that:

“The abortion industry purposefully targets and exploits hurting women, deceiving them into believing abortion is their only option. But you can reach vulnerable moms with hope, rescue their preborn children from abortion, and restore their families to wholeness today!”

Anti-choice centers owned by organizations like Human Coalition often willfully spread misinformation about abortion risks and contraception (Rosen, 2021).35 Black women, especially, are targets of this white evangelicalism. Altemeyer suggests that “Religion, most inadvertently, may provide an early ethnocentrism school—which we attend by segregating ourselves into our families’ religions” (2003).36 Research by Hall et al. showed that “Simply identifying with a religious group seemed to establish intergroup dynamics of favoring the ingroup and derogating racial out-groups” (2010).37 With the enactment of the Texas Abortion Facility Reporting and Licensing Act of 1989, lawmakers now had the ability to identify the “others” in their midst – those who receive abortions. The data from the “Induced Terminations of Pregnancy” is publicly available on the Texas.gov website.

The majority of people receiving abortion fall under the Asian, Hispanic, and Black categories – despite the state being majority white.

Compared with 10 other high-income countries (CAN, UK, NOR, SWE, NETH, FRA, SWIZ, GRE, AUS, NZ) by using international data, the US has the highest death rate in Pregnancy and Childbirth than those in other wealthy nations. Also, women in the U.S. reported a higher rate of having multiple chronic diseases compared to women in the 10 other countries, with German women reporting the lowest rates. One in five U.S. women reported having two or more chronic conditions, compared to one in 10 or less in Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia.

Chronic diseases include a diagnosis of joint pain or arthritis, asthma or chronic lung disease, diabetes, heart disease, or high blood pressure.38 On the other hand, women in Switzerland and the U.S. Report Very High Out-of-Pocket Costs. High healthcare costs create significant financial burdens on U.S. household budgets, even among insured families. Over onequarter of women in Switzerland and the U.S. reported spending $2,000 or more in out-ofpocket medical costs for themselves or their family in the past year. In comparison, no more than one of 20 women reported such high costs in most other countries included in the study.39

Women’s Healthcare Women in the United States continue to be disadvantaged by their relatively poorer health status and higher costs of care, while benefiting from higher rates of preventive screenings and quicker access to specialty care.

Black Women’s Maternal and Overall Health Black women in the US experience unacceptably poor maternal health outcomes, including disproportionately high rates of death related to pregnancy or childbirth.40 Both societal and health system factors contribute to high rates of poor health

35 Rosen JD. The public health risks of crisis pregnancy centers. Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 2012 Sep;44(3):201-5. doi: 10.1363/4420112. Epub 2012 Jul 19. PMID: 22958665.

36 Altemeyer, Bob. 2003. “RESEARCH: Why Do Religious Fundamentalists Tend to Be Prejudiced?” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 13 (1): 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327582IJPR1301_03.

37 Hall, Deborah L., David C. Matz, and Wendy Wood. 2010. “Why Don’t We Practice What We Preach? A Meta-Analytic Review of Religious Racism.”

Personality and Social Psychology Review 14 (1): 126–39. https://doi. org/10.1177/1088868309352179.

38 Munira Z. Gunja, What Is the Status of Women’s Health and Health Care in the U.S. Compared to Ten Other Countries?, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/ publications/issue-briefs/2018/dec/womens-health-us-compared-ten-othercountries. Dec, 19, 2018 39 Munira Z. Gunja, What Is the Status of Women’s Health and Health Care in the U.S. Compared to Ten Other Countries?, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/ publications/issue-briefs/2018/dec/womens-health-us-compared-ten-othercountries. Dec, 19, 2018 40 National Partnership for Women & Families, “Black Women’s Maternal Health” April, 2018

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outcomes and maternal mortality for Black women, who are more likely to experience barriers to obtaining quality care and often face racial discrimination throughout their lives.

Black women are three to four times more likely to experience a pregnancyrelated death than white women because of their maternal health complications.

Black women usually experience physical “weathering” (beginning to deteriorate in early adulthood as a physical consequence of cumulative socioeconomic disadvantage) easier than other races, their bodies age faster due to exposure to chronic stress linked to socioeconomic disadvantage and discrimination over the lifetime, therefore, black women would having pregnancy risker at an earlier age.41

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pro-white implicit biases were more likely to prescribe pain medications to white patients than to Black patients.42 Solution: Expand and maintain access to health coverage.

The policymakers, health care professionals’ and communities can improve Black people’s health. Black people need health coverage throughout their lifespan including access to preventive health care, and maintain their health and choose to become a parent.

To people who choose to become legal parents, or expand their family, healthcare should be more beneficial to these types of people. Otherwise, providing patientcentered care that is responsive to the natural health disadvantage of black women is also significant. Black women should receive health care respectfully, safely and of the highest quality. At the same time, public and medical practice should incentivize providing medical centered care that focuses on black women’s individualized needs.

After all, Black people simply are not receiving the same quality of healthcare that their white counterparts receive. According to Dayna Bowen Matthew’s book, Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Healthcare (2015), not most medical experts will admire having negative attitudes toward any Psychological Effects of the Current particular race. Thus, the apparent racial bias Patriarchal Structure of doctors would not explain racial differences The social control over women’s sexuality, in health. One study showed that physicians “sexual expression,” and reproduction is as old whose IAT tests revealed them to harbor as human civilization and it is a central feature 41 National Partnership for Women & Families, “Black Women’s Maternal Health” of the patriarchal sex/gender system.43 Since April, 2018. the emergence of the feminist movement in the 1960’s women’s bodies have been a focal issue around which many protests and campaigns have been made.

The right of autonomy of a female body has been argued for many years in relation to contraception, abortion, and birthing methods.44 Reproduction is a source of power which women should control, but the technology is controlled by men. This instills patriarchal control.45 Typically the role of birth control technology is at the women’s hands. Though when men discovered their role in conception, this created the role of 42 Khiara M. Bridges, “Implicit Bias and Racial Disparities in Health Care”, https:// www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/ the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/racial-disparities-in-health-care/. The Poverty of Privacy Rights (2017) 43 Claire M. Renzetti, Feminist Criminology (Routledge, 2013).

44 Moira Gatens, Imaginary Bodies Ethics, Power and Corporeality (Taylor and Francis, 2013).

45 Adrienne Rich. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. (New York: W.W. Norton., 1977)

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

“When Black and Latina women resort to abortions in such large numbers, the stories they tell are not so much about their desire to be free of their pregnancy, but rather about the miserable social conditions which dissuade them from bringing new lives into the world.

Black women have been aborting themselves since the earliest days of slavery.

Many slave women refused to bring children into a world of interminable forced labor, where chains and floggings and sexual abuse for women were the everyday conditions of life.” 1 1 Angela Davis. Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement (​​Haymarket Books, 2016), 207.

the patriarchy within women’s reproduction rights.46 The control over reproduction has came about in many ways such as chastity belts, confinement of homes, and making birth control and abortion illegal.

These strong methods of control suggest that the attempt of women trying to liberate themselves from the subjugated position they’re in marks a threat to the existing social order.47 There has always been a strong resistance for women’s rights to control their bodies especially with abortion rights.

According to the Center for Reproductive rights (2014), 39% of the world’s population still lives in countries that either prohibit abortion altogether or only allow the procedure to save a woman’s life or preserve her health.

Women’s rights activists’ use of “reproductive politics” emerged in the mid-20th century, which signified that it did not just involve women and their right to unwanted pregnancies. Instead it extends towards abortion, race and sterilization, class and adoption, women and sexuality and other related subjects.48 Knudsen makes the 46 Rebecca M. Albury, The Politics of Reproduction: Beyond the Slogans (Allen & Unwin, 1999).

47 Bridget Hutter and Gillian Williams, Controlling Women: The Normal and the Deviant (Croom Helm, 1984).

48 Rickie Solinger, “Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice” NWSA Journal 17, no. 1 (2005): pp. 239-241, https://doi.org/10.1353/ nwsa.2005.0020.

argument, “the best known reproductive rights organization focused almost exclusively on issues that were most important to white upper-middle class American women rather than addressing the directly affected the less privileged” (2006). Many reproduction rights activists neglect issues affecting women of color (particularly Black women) and poor women such as sterilization abuses, inadequate access to health care, information and contraception. According to Angela Davis (2016, p. 207), in Mulheres, raça e classe [Women, Race and Class], points out that in New York in the 1970s, “[about] 80 percent of deaths caused by illegal abortions involved Black and Puerto Rican women”, and says: Racism and the women’s living conditions made it impossible for black women to live motherhood, because the despair for the possibility of seeing their sons and daughters under the same inhuman conditions sometimes prevailed, even if it also cost their own lives. The inequalities operated by the capital system at the international level and its appropriations of patriarchy and racism are expressed in the sexual and reproductive life of women, deepening the dimension of oppression and exploitation over them.

Racism and patriarchy are not two separate institutions that intersect only in the lives of black women. They are interrelated, mutually supporting systems of dominance and their relation is essential to understand the subordination of all women. Racism is patriarchal and patriarchy is racist. The idea of patriarchy being racist terms for the notion that the power is rooted and strictly under white men. The idea of racism and patriarchy intersect with the idea of motherhood which coincides with the idea of sexuality, reproduction and control of women. According to Rich: “motherhood is an identity enforced as a political institution.”

She states, “an unwed Black teenager, for example, may experience motherhood as a rare source of self-affirmation, while society deems her motherhood to be illegitimate and deviant”(1979).49 She may experience caring for her child as a determined struggle against harsh circumstances, while society sees in her mothering the pathological perpetuation of poverty. Some women may experience mothering as debilitating and intrusive, even though patriarchal ideology defines it as a woman’s instinctive vocation. Some women may experience fulfillment and happiness in mothering, even though feminist theory calls it oppressive.

Media and Political Views on Abortion People get their information through various mediums like television, newspapers, and magazines. With these type of media being 49 Adrienne Rich. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977)

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In late 2021, Saturday Night Live Star Cecily Strong performed a skit on Weekend Update where she played a clown talking about clown abortions. The failed gags (balloon animal, broken horn) coupled with the actress’ own personal, growing frustration used comedy to point out things society won’t say. She points out that “one in three clowns” will have a clown abortion in their lifetime, but that we don’t know because “won’t even talk to other clowns about it.”

the way that people get their information Several conservative media outlets share the today, research has to be done to see what same view with each other. Breitbart, one of type of information about the abortion ban in the most conservative news outlet, say the Texas they are providing to the general public. abortion ban is a way to lower the amount Current popular media searches show the bias of women that are damaged by abortion, between sources. Some news media discusses including associated suicides, anxiety, eating the effects of the new law harming people of disorders, and depression1. Other news color and entrenching racist policies,50 while sources, like The Blaze, say that liberals do other media news sources talk about how the not care about women and that the “truth abortion law will see fewer women suffer from is that the left hates women and children”, the ‘tragedy of abortion’.51 Media does not and also refer to the Democratic Party as the only include news outlets and online articles.

‘American Taliban’.54 A research article titled Coverage of Abortion in Select U.S. Newspapers explains that most of the time that abortion shows up in the news, it is merely mentioned rather than explaining it substantively.52 With abortion being a critical health service for women, U.S. newspapers do not typically cover this topic as a health issue. The news media should include facts that can help better educate the public about the context of abortion as a safe and common health care service3. The article also goes into depth on how, anytime abortion is discussed in the press, politics dominates the coverage. This can be seen during Presidential election years when news coverage about abortion increases.53

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50 Robert Kraychik, “Abby Johnson: Tx Abortion Law Means Fewer Women Committing Suicide,” Breitbart, September 3, 2021, https://www.breitbart. com/radio/2021/09/03/abby-johnson-tx-abortion-law-means-fewer-womencommitting-suicide/.

51 Robert Kraychik, “Abby Johnson: Tx Abortion Law Means Fewer Women Committing Suicide,” Breitbart, September 3, 2021, https://www.breitbart. com/radio/2021/09/03/abby-johnson-tx-abortion-law-means-fewer-womencommitting-suicide/.

52 Katie Woodruff, “Coverage of Abortion in Select U.S. Newspapers,” Women’s Health Issues 29, no. 1 (2019): pp. 80-86, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2018.08.008.

53 Elizabeth M. Perse et al., “News Coverage of Abortion Betweenroeandwebster: Public Opinion and Real World Events,” Communication Research Reports 14, no. 1 (1997): pp. 97-105, https://doi.org/10.1080/08824099709388650.

Obvious Child (2014) was praised for its portrayal of abortion. Jenny Slate’s character becomes pregnant after a one-night stand and decides to abort.

When viewing articles on Liberal websites like Buzzfeed and New York Times, it can be seen that they side more with the women having access to abortions. In an article, I Couldn’t Tell My Family About My Abortion. Texas’s Ban Targets the Support System I Relied On, the interviewee states that “In a state where many people facing unwanted pregnancy might not have family to turn to, a law that sabotages the only support systems that remain just makes their journey that much more merciless.”55 There are several new sources that are labeled “centrist” by Allsides.com. These news outlets do not have any bias when it comes to Conservative or Liberal views. This can be seen when researching topics on “pro-life” and “pro-choice”. When other left or right leaning media outlets did not show articles for both sides, BBC News had two articles that discussed Arguments in favour of abortion and Arguments against abortion. The article in favour of abortion talks about how abortion affects women disproportionately:56 A pregnancy to a woman is perhaps one of the most determinative aspects of her life. It 54 Delano Squires, “Squires: The Real ‘American Taliban’ Wages a War on Children by Promoting Abortion and Death Culture,” TheBlaze, September 3, 2021, https://www. theblaze.com/op-ed/squires-the-real-american-taliban-wages-a-war-on-childrenby-promoting-abortion-and-death-culture.

55 Alex W., “I Couldn’t Tell My Family about My Abortion. Texas’s Ban Targets the Support System I Relied on.,” BuzzFeed News (BuzzFeed News, September 9, 2021), https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexw921/texas-abortion-support-systemfamily.

56 “Ethics - Abortion: Arguments in Favour of Abortion,” BBC (BBC), accessed October 14, 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/mother/for_1.shtml.

disrupts her body. It disrupts her education.

It disrupts her employment. And it often disrupts her entire family life.

In the article against abortion, it is discussed that abortion sidesteps oppression of women, damages women, and violates feminist principles:57 There are women who are raped and become pregnant; the problem is that they were raped, not that they are pregnant.

There are women who are starving who become pregnant; the problem is that they are starving, not that they are pregnant.

There are women in abusive relationships who become pregnant; the problem is that they are in abusive relationships, not that they are pregnant.

encountered a type of barrier when trying to obtain an abortion. The most common barrier experienced by the characters in the show was the illegality of abortion. Other barriers depicted were funding, waiting periods, and travel time to healthcare providers.

Abortion in Other Forms of Media With about 48% of adults in the United States saying they get their news from social media either “often” or “sometimes.”59 Research has to also be done on these mediums to also see what type of information people are absorbing. People not only see topics on abortion show up on Facebook, but they can also see this topic in Twitter, billboards, and video games.

Social Media When dealing with social media, it can be expected to run into misinformation about a specific topic. This can be seen when it comes to the topic of abortion on Facebook.

In an article from The New York Times titled Facebook Is Ignoring Anti-Abortion Fake News, it states that articles about abortion from reputable sources like The New York Time or The Washington Post did not make the top list of most shared articles on Facebook. Instead, articles from sites like LifeNews.com did. Websites like LifeNews and organizations Live Action, share misinformation on Facebook to hundreds of thousands of people with just a click of the share button.

Abortion, Race, and Television The topic of abortion on television shows or movies is something that has been seen for years. While recent representation have shifted to reflect some demographics of abortion patients in the United States, people of color, low-income individuals, and parents continue to be under-represented.58 The research article Abortion on American television: An update on recent portrayals, 2015-2019 discusses that out of the 85 abortion plot lines on television that they reviewed, 66% of the characters getting an abortion were white, 87% were not parenting, 67% did not experience any barriers to abortion access, and 59% were depicted as either middle class or higher.

During this research, it was also found that only 34% of characters in abortion plot lines

Billboards In February of 2010, a few anti-abortion groups erected several billboards around Atlanta with the message that “Black children are an endangered species.”

57 “Ethics - Abortion: Arguments against Abortion,” BBC (BBC), accessed October 14, 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/mother/against_1.shtml.

58 Stephanie Herold and Gretchen Sisson, “Abortion on American Television: An Update on Recent Portrayals, 2015–2019,” Contraception 102, no. 6 (2020): pp. 421423, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2020.08.012.

59 Mason Walker and Katerina Eva Matsa, “News Consumption across Social Media in 2021,” Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project (Pew Research Center, September 20, 2021), https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2021/09/20/newsconsumption-across-social-media-in-2021/.

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Video Games Trapped is a free browser game with a simple goal: to make players understand the realities of how difficult it can be to get an abortion, particularly when economic, political and cultural factors get in the way.

Twitter In May of 2019, the hashtag #youknowme starts trending on Twitter encouraging women to speak about their abortion stories.

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Satire as a Communication Tool Since the advent of the internet, satire has become readily accessible to many audiences.

From Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show to Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report to the completely fabricated but eerily full of prognostic, The Onion - satire is everywhere.

Merriam-Webster defines satire as “a way of using humor to show that someone or something is foolish, weak, bad, etc.: Humor that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of a person, government, society, etc.” Satire often takes the form of parody: “which is ultimately an imitation of an original speech act or text” (Becker, 2020). In addition to being a source of information, satire can also be used to change people’s minds.

A 2019 study by Feldman and Chattoo showed that “... watching a satirical news segment, either alone or alongside a traditional news segment, is more effective than watching news alone when it comes to encouraging people to care about the Syrian refugee crisis.” (Feldman and Chattoo, 2019).

By utilizing satire along with traditional news media, satirical, informational campaigns could be crafted that could help people care.

Some authors argue that satire can be destructive and lead to apathy, but after analyzing media like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Kilby (2018) found that: “By adopting a hybrid mix of comedy and advocacy traits, both satirists challenged the perception that satire is too angry to propose solutions to political problems. In fact, this study found that Oliver and Bee proposed strategies to help educate conservative news audiences and change journalistic practices, although these solutions were a tad ambitious.”

Any future satirical strategies and campaigns should be designed with solutions in mind ambitious as they may be - as they would help ease the feeling of futility when “punching up” with satire.

Conclusion By gathering the legal, historical, cultural, psychological and current perspectives, laws, and attitudes towards abortion - along with the help of research on crafting satire and the comedians who have come before, a brand new campaign can be crafted utilizing the belief that all citizens should have access to universal healthcare, thereby providing access to preventative measures like vasectomies, and thus finally removing the burden of reproductive responsibility from Black women while simultaneously forming a more empathic society.

Programs like The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, The Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj and The Break with Michelle Wolf challenge previous notions of who can be a satrical political commentator in America.

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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Albury, Rebecca M. "The politics of reproduction: Beyond the slogans." (1999).

A socially conservative campaign against abortion led by Tony Abott, Minister of Health was attmepted to intervene in the popular compromise which recognized th seriuosness of abortion decisions and maintian acesibilty in Sydney, Australia. It appealed to a sense of shame, and this paper analyzed the use of shame to explain the deeper effect of conservative policy positions regarding sexuality.

Baier, Annette C. “Review of Pilgrim’s Progress, by David Gauthier.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 18, no. 2 (1988): 315–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231611.

This paper critiques the social contract theory, suggesting that the social contract theories neglect the experience of children, and women who are expected to take care of them, and the fact that they are being marginalized.

Becker, Amy. Applying mass communication frameworks to study humor’s impact: advancing the study of political satire, Annals of the International Communication Association, 2020 44:3, 273-288, DOI: 10.1080/23808985.2020.1794925 This resrouce helps gather information about how satire can be used within the framework of spreading information across mass communication channels.

Blumenthal, Daid. “Texas's New Abortion Law Will Harm People of Color, Further Entrench Racist Policies.”

Commonwealth Fund, September 22, 2021. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2021/texass-new-abortionlaw-will-harm-people-color-further-entrench-racist-policies Helps back the assertion that Black women are indeed disproprtionately effected, as stated in our prompt.

Butters, Julie. Why America Can’t Separate Religion and Politics. Boston University, 2015.

The author referenced historian Bruce Schulman who pointed out that American voters would only be willing to vote for politicians with some affiliation to Christianity. This makes it even harder to separate religious belief and prejudices from policy-making.

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Crenshaw, Kimberlé. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, 1989. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf This article by Kimberlé Crenshaw discusses how “the single-axis framework erases black women the conceptualization, identification and remediation of race and sex discrimination by limiting inquiry to the experiences of otherwiseprivileged members of the group.” It is, therefore, important that the effects of race and gender not be separate.

Davis, Angela Y. Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement. Haymarket Books, 2016.

Reflection of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today’s struggles, from the black freedom movement to the South African anti-apartheid movement.

Dewan, Shaila. “Anti-Abortion Ads Split Atlanta.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 6, 2010. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/us/06abortion.html?_r=0 Shaila Dewan talks about an event that occurred in Atlanta, Georgia in 2010 where anti-abortion groups erected several billboards with the message “Black children are an endangered species”. Dewan goes on to discuss that this statement is actually false since the fertility rate for Black women remains higher than the national average. The value used from this source was to show the different forms of media and how abortion can be portrayed on them. A well placed billboard can get thousands of impressions per day.

Feldman Lauren & Chattoo, Caty Borum. Comedy as a Route to Social Change: The Effects of Satire and News on Persuasion about Syrian Refugees, Mass Communication and Society 2019, 22:3, 277-300, DOI: 10.1080/15205436.2018.1545035 This research tested satire’s ability to make people care more about a certain issues, in this case: Syrian refugees. We could connect this framework in order to make people care more about Black women.

Gatens, Moira. Imaginary bodies: Ethics, power and corporeality. Routledge, 2013.

Investigates the ways in which differently sexedbodies can oppuy the same social or political space. Investigates the deep structural bias against women extending beyond the metaphysics and its effects felt in epistemology, moral, social and political theory.

Grossman, Daniel, et al. “Change in Abortion Services after Implementation of a Restrictive Law in Texas.”

Contraception, vol. 90, no. 5, 2014, pp. 496–501. Crossref, doi:10.1016/j.contraception.2014.07.006.

Discusses what the effects of restrictive abortion laws are on women in Texas.

Held, Virginia. Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993.

This book discusses the feminist take on social issues and politics. This is important because what is understood as moral choice and the social contract has been constructed mostly by men, and these rules are affecting women in an oppressive way.

Herold, Stephanie, and Gretchen Sisson. “Abortion on American Television: An Update on Recent Portrayals, 2015– 2019.” Contraception 102, no. 6 (2020): 421–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2020.08.012 This research article by Stephanie Herold looks into the portrayal of aboriton on television. This article provided a lot of value because it went into great detail about the demographics of abortion plotlines. One of the best pieces of information found in this article was that out of the 85 plotlines they researched, 67& of them did not experience any barriers.

Hutter, Bridget, and Gillian Williams, eds. Controlling women: The normal and the deviant. Vol. Taylor & Francis, 1981.

This article addresses the themes: existing stereotypes limit the options for both females and males through the life cycle; social agents influence children’s attitudes. Sex-role stereotyping and mental health standards in regards to sexuality.

Kilby, Allaina Provoking the Citizen, Journalism Studies, 19:13, 1934-1944, 2018DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2018.1495573 This resource provides strategies for designing the most effective satire towards action. The old ways of satire were considered determintal to political engagement but mondern edutainment is changing that.

Knudsen, Susanne V. "Intersectionality–A theoretical inspiration in the analysis of minority cultures and identities in textbooks." Caught in the Web or Lost in the Textbook 53, no. 1 (2006): 61-76.

A theoretical session provided a conceptual framework in question around identity, family, text interpretation and informal learning.

Kraychik, Robert. “Abby Johnson: Tx Abortion Law Means Fewer Women Committing Suicide.” Breitbart, September 3, 2021. https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2021/09/03/abby-johnson-tx-abortion-law-means-fewer-womencommitting-suicide/ This article by Robert Kraychik from Breitbart, discusses an interview by Abby Johnson, the author of Unplanned: the Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line. In this interview Abby goes on to mention that the abortion law will help women by lessening the amount that suffer from the tragedy of abortion (associated suicides, anxiety and eating disorders, and depression). There was value in this source because it shows a different view point about the abortion ban.

Lindsay, D Michael. n.d. “Evangelicals in the Power Elite: Elite Cohesion Advancing a Movement,” 23.

How the evangelicals gain and kept power Mills, Charles. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press, 1997.

Mills argues that the racial contract keeps the same people in power, and prevents the marginalized from realizing the political reality. Therefore, the racial contract arguably overwrites the social contract, as it determines who get to decide how the system works, which keeps oppression in place.

Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract. Oxford: Polity Press, 1988.

This book discusses the sexual contract with respect to social contract theories. Pateman argues that the social contract keeps patriarchy in place, and patriarchy oppresses women.

Perse, Elizabeth M., Douglas M. McLeod, Nancy Signorielli, and Juliet Dee. “News Coverage of Abortion Betweenroeandwebster: Public Opinion and Real World Events.” Communication Research Reports 14, no. 1 (1997): 97–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824099709388650 This article by several authors discusses how media coverage on abortion can change if it is a presidential election year.

The data showed that newspapers would print more abortion related topics during presidential election years. There was value in this article as the data was used to show how the topic on abortion becomes more talked about during presidential election years.

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, 1971.

John Rawls is one of the modern philosophers who offered their take on the social contract theory. According to Rawls, the most ideal state to decide on the basic principles of a society is behind the veil of ignorance, for people are impartial when they are ignorant of their own race, gender, etc.

Reagan, Leslie J. When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law In the United States, 1867-1973. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. https://hdl-handle-net.ezp1.lib.umn.edu/2027/heb.04396. EPUB. This book discusses the history of abortion and the anti-abortion campaigns in the U.S from late 19th century to 1973 when abortion was legalized. By showing the context of each abortion campaign, the book leads readers to understand the motives behind them, and these motives were more about control and discrimination than they were about women wellbeing.

Renzetti, Claire. Feminist criminology. Routledge, 2013.

This volume traces the development of feimist criminioolgy from the 1970s to the present, examining th ediversity of feminism specifically black/multiracial feminist criminiology.

Rich, Adrienne. Of women born: Motherhood as experience and institution. WW Norton & Company, 2021.

This book is the experience of her own, as a woman, poet, feminst and a mother drawn on history, research and literature.

Solinger, Rickie. "Undivided rights: Women of color organize for reproductive justice." (2005): 239-241.

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This provides a textured understanding of the reproductive rights movement by placing the experiences, priorities, and activism of women of color in the foreground.

Squires, Delano. “Squires: The Real 'American Taliban' Wages a War on Children by Promoting Abortion and Death Culture.” TheBlaze, September 3, 2021. https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/squires-the-real-american-talibanwages-a-war-on-children-by-promoting-abortion-and-death-culture This article from Delano Squires of The Blaze discusses how the left is at an “all-out war on American children”. It also goes on to state that although the Democratic Party promotes themselves as the party that is pro-women and pro-child, it actually “hates women and children”. This article was chosen, just as other articles in this research, to show how both sides see the topic on abortion.

W., Alex. “I Couldn't Tell My Family about My Abortion. Texas's Ban Targets the Support System I Relied on.”

BuzzFeed News. BuzzFeed News, September 9, 2021. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexw921/texasabortion-support-system-family This article by Alex W. discusses how the Texas abortion ban targets the support system a lot of women rely on. It also discusses the story of the author going through the abortion process. This article was used to show what women have to go through and the support they have when going through the abortion process. In a state where many people facing unwanted pregnancy might not have family to turn to, a law that sabotages the only support systems that remain just makes their journey that much more merciless.

Warren, Rossalyn. “Facebook Is Ignoring Anti-Abortion Fake News.” The New York Times. The New York Times, November 10, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/opinion/facebook-fake-news-abortion.html This article from Rossalyn Warren of The New York Times, discusses that even though Facebook is working on the distribution of fake news, it is ignoring anti-abortion misinformation. For example, it talks about an article that was shared that mentions that babies never need to be aborted to save a mother’s life. This article added value to the overall research by showing that since a lot of people are getting most of their news from social media, not all of the information is valid.

Walker, Mason, and Katerina Eva Matsa. “News Consumption across Social Media in 2021.” Pew Research Center's Journalism Project. Pew Research Center, September 20, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/ journalism/2021/09/20/news-consumption-across-social-media-in-2021/ This research by the Pew Research Center shows the amount of Americans that regularly Facebook to get their news.

It mentions that about half of Americans get news on social media at least sometimes. It goes into great detail over the different social media platforms and how regularly Americans get their news. Twitter came in first with 55%, followed by Facebook and Reddit.

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Williams, Daniel K. 2011. “The GOP’s Abortion Strategy: Why Pro-Choice Republicans Became Pro-Life in the 1970s.”

Journal of Policy History 23 (4): 513–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898030611000285.

This article discusses the political strategy of the GOP in the early days of white evangeliacism Woodruff, Katie. “Coverage of Abortion in Select U.S. Newspapers.” Women's Health Issues 29, no. 1 (2019): 80–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2018.08.008 This research article by Katie Woodruff discusses the coverage of abortion in U.S. newspapers. It discusses how whenever the topic of abortion shows up in the news, that it is merely just mentioned and not talked about into more detail. It also mentions, as other articles mentioned, that during presidential election years abortion coverage increases.

This article is used to show that news media should do a better job of educating the public about aborting being a safe and common healthcare service.

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04 IDEATE As a diverse group of designers, we bring many strengths and interests to the table. The list on the following page are various cards we pulled early and even implemented a few in the low-fidelity phase - ideas and applications we thought we could potentially explore - before eventually narrowing our focus.

Arts and Culture Book Booklet Campaign Collage Color Coloring book Conference Digital Media Education Entertainment Environment Experience Design Government Information Magazine Mixed Media Mobile Application Narrative Newsletter Packaging Political Poster Religion Storytelling Transit/Trasportation Typography

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Photo by Koshu Kunii on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

HEALTHCARE

CAMPAIGN

IDENTITY MARKS/BRANDS

The organization of people, institutions, and resources that deliver healthcare services to maintain or restore physical, mental, or emotional well-being of target populations

A connected series of operations designed to bring about a particular result

Marks that are used to identify and represent a company or organization

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Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

ILLUSTRATION

SOCIAL MEDIA

STICKER

A pictorial representation created by hand or by using digital resources

Electronic communication through which users create Online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content

An adhesive label or notice, generally printed or illustrated

QUADRANT MAP We utilized this quadrant map to plot our ideas and how they would impact our audiences. Ultimately, we settled on advocating for vasectomies as a preemptive alternative to abortion. This removes the burden of reproductive health that almost always falls upon the person with a uterus.

However, knowing what we know about the American healthcare system, we realized that we would have to advocate for universal healthcare - our taxes going directly to our care - so that cost wouldn’t be a barrier to getting a vasectomy.

Universal healthcare would also benefit Black women directly - from being allowed to leave an abusive relationship or workplace, to completely avoiding medical debt - universal healthcare is our answer.

OPPRESIVE THOUGHT

Turn other Christian denomications against the evangelicals

Shame evangelicals into minding their own business

Freedom of and from religion 51

INTENT

IMPACT

Show hypocracy of using faith to justify someone’s actions.

Or “my body, my choice.”

Address the accessibility of contraception

New laws

Rebrand birth control and surrounding language

Create a campaign about hypocracy of other bible verses

Work with physicians to reimagine the ideas surrounding abortion

ALL MEN GET VASECTOMIES

Stop taxing feminine products and start taxing men

ANTI-OPPRESSIVE ACTION

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05 PROTOTYPE

53 Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

BRAINSTORMING

WIRE-FRAMES

SKETCHES

Using sticky notes, whiteboard, or larger pieces of paper to

A visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website

Rapidly executed freehand drawing not intended as a finished work

LOW FIDELITY Various social media posts to encourage discussion about vasecotimies as a legitimate alternative to abortion and birth control methods that are the responsibility of the man’s partner.

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Cute stickers awareness of other birth control methods (vasectomies) and the slogan “stop the control” to address how the abortion law is really a way to control women.

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3

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2

4

Branching Narrative Plan (translated from sketch for print)

Career

Healthcare

Life Event

Freelancer

Marketplace

Injury

Tradesperson

Union

Layoffs

Corporate

Employee-sponsored

Fired (at will state)

Stay at Home Mom

State Medicaid

Accidentally pregnant

Outcome

1 Rough wireframing for our website (Efren) 2 Potential marketing material sketches (Gary) 3 Parody merchandise (Ahn) 4 First narrative plan for interactive (Jack) 5 First brand standards (Ahn) 6 Logos and art (Gary + Annaika) 7 Polished website mockups (Efren) 8 Clickthrough empathy interactive (Jack)

MID FIDELITY 5

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6

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SOCIAL MEDIA ASSETS

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FINAL BRAND GUIDELINES AND ASSETS

BANANA

REPUBLICANS

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Oxford Blue

Light Coral

Dark Jungle Green

Magic Mint

RGB: 0,18,40 CMYK: 92,80,54,70 #001228

RGB: 188,56,131 CMYK: 26,92,15,0 #BC3883

RGB: 24,38,36 CMYK: 79,61,66,71 #182624

Rust

Saffron

RGB: 180,237,210 CMYK: 28,0,23,0 #B4EDD2

RGB: 184,52,0 CMYK: 19,92,100,11 #B83400

RGB: 235,193,38 CMYK: 9,22,98,0 #EBC126

Aethet Nova ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Gentona Book ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

The Brand Story Our mission is to inspire men across the nation through fair and balanced honest storytelling, technology, and cool swag to stop abortions and get a vasectomy.

After deciding to take the satirical approach and choosing the banana as the key visual for our brand, we went on and developed the full brand, including the name, tagline, logo, and chose the typefaces.

The name “Banana Republicans” was inspired by, obviously, the banana, and the fact that republicans tend to make decisions that align with Christian beliefs which, in this case, advocates for banning abortion.

Since our research shows that the anti-abortion campaigns have rarely been about the wellbeing of women - and more about control - we came up with the tagline “Controlz is everything.” At a glance, it emphasizes the control of the women 's bodies. However, control+z also means undoing.

We feel this tagline hides the message under a playful message, which is consistent with the brand.

The cartoonish logo and the typefaces we chose also embrace the satirical overall message of the brand.

Additional assets include re-occuring characters that can spread the messages of vasectomies with comedy.

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06 IMPACT Our campaign, based on the web, contains the following facets in order to measure and leverage our impact.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

VISION STATEMENT

PLEDGE

Showing and telling a comprehensive outline of what the offering will bring

A committment by a person or organization by a solemn promise or undertaking

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Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

ANALYTICS Information resulting from the systemic analysis of data or statistics (ie.e social media statistics)

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

VALUES Written statements that define an organization’s principles or standards of behavior

One the the main things that we will use to measure our impact will have to do with Analytics. We will implement Google analytics on our website so we can track to see how many people visit our website and where they are visiting from. We will also be able to see the analytics of the QR code that can be implemented on stickers/posters or other items. Just like google analytics, this will let us know how many people have scanned the QR code and where they are located. This will help us measure our impact and see how far our campaign has reached.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

MISSION STATEMENT A short formal summary of the values of a company, organization, or individual.

MURAL BOARD

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07 SUMMARY

Reflection The Nature of Representation of Visual Communication was quite the roller-coaster of a class. Our group in the beginning was struggling in terms of understanding how to relate the Texas Abortion law into a design piece. Some of us weren’t completely informed on the topic at hand, so the research was essential. When we had to brainstorm for research methods, I think many of us were still unsure at the time how this would turn into a process book towards the end. Coming up with a thesis that addressed the law was challenging to all of us. Many of the original thesis statements were either too vague or sided too much with a certain view.

Once the thesis was finalized I believe the group really felt they had the ball rolling. Coming up with the literature review was easy since each of us concentrated on a specific topic. Once we got to the actual designing of our brand statements, prototypes, and cover design I think it was when our group actually started to understand the endgame of our project. Finishing the work was much easier, and seeing all the parts that we had worked on through the semester coming together was satisfying.

Overall, the class was really interesting because it forced us to examine political events in different limelights and design a book highlighting our work. If we had to redo some parts, we would definitely nail down the thesis statement right away. We would also try to make our literature review thorough and have a better idea of how resources are connected.

Coming up with the brand design shouldn’t take two to three weeks to nail down. I think we spent too much time coming up with multiple designs that we didn’t establish exactly how we wanted to format the designs.

Because of this we had to work on our project for an extra week. All in all, the group had a great time working on the entire process, through the ups and down of creating the process book for this class.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

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Anh Le He/Him/His Onboarding On the first day of class, we went over the syllabus, and discussed what should be an accepted classroom manner. It was interesting to find out about our classmates’ backgrounds, as well as the varied results for the personality tests. These results would be a good reference when we go into group projects.

Context It’s surprising how many terms there are to describe the rooted problems that played some roles in the abortion ban, with each term representing a problem. Some of these oppressive and prejudiced beliefs seem to have been passed on for so long, and are continuing to be forced on marginalized groups, and in this case, women and especially black women. The biases against women conveniently keep the same people (old white men) in the position of power, and the power is used to keep the oppressive system going. It is hard to change people’s beliefs, but designers can make changes to the culture.

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Define The definition of a “wicked problem” seems to be the highlight. It means a design solution can solve a problem but may create another problem. This wicked problem is expected to occur as we look into the Texas abortion ban under different theories - the ban may seem one way under one lens, but different under another. Hopefully the theories would help us understand the issue more thoroughly, instead of revealing insolvable conflicts. I still haven’t quite figured or imagined how a design solution to this problem would be, considering that one of the main root causes is religion.

The reading discusses how the society is constructed by the ones with power and favors them, the powerless are left with the lacuna-gap of knowledge which is a big barrier for their self-construction. They do not have the vocabulary to describe their experience, so it becomes even more difficult for them to address and resolve their issues. If we are to put this in the context of this class, we should identify the gap that women and especially black women are experiencing as a place to start to address the issue of the abortion ban.

Ideate John Mathers’ Design Intervention points out the common aspect of all designs is that design arranges physical elements to fulfil some function; it is important to “link up all the necessary disciplines so they can be channeled towards the real need of the end user”.

On one hand, I think this is very important to what we are doing for the thesis in this class, because I doubt design alone can solve such a complex problem. However, I also learned that sometimes the true end users are the creators; the “theoretical” end users don’t need the products as much as the creators need to sell them (and influence the buyers’ behavior in certain ways).

Prototype As we started the prototyping stage, we had some issues deciding what would be the most suitable medium. Since patriarchy and religion are decided to be the two most deep rooted causes of the issue, we tried working on a campaign that addresses these 2 causes. This campaign will address vasectomy in men and point out the influence that religion has on policy making in the U.S. We focus on a satirical communication campaign. This campaign will promote vasectomy in men, and portray it as a safe and accessible contraception method that can reduce/replace the control asserted on women; it also addresses the hypocrisy that lawmakers, most of whom are men, in their argument against abortions. Included in this campaign will be social media posts, a website with information, and printed buttons.

The satirical graphics are intended to grab people’s attention for our campaign, which will in turn advocate for more accessible contraceptive methods and reproductive healthcare. Satire can also be used in the stories on the website to educate viewers and point out the misinformation on the media. We found that this campaign can ultimately benefit black women while not being explicit.

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Impact After presenting the high-fidelity prototype and the current stage of the process book, we started discussing how the impact will be measured, and how the process book can be improved. We can track how many people visit our website and get our message. Each member of the team is aware of their tasks for the following week.

Final entry It has been a challenging journey to tackle such a complicated issue as the abortion ban, especially after we did the research on the context and the different factors involved. Learning the process of identifying a problem, its context, and finding the possible design solutions is definitely helpful for our career moving forward.

Anh is an MFA Graphic Design student at the University of Minnesota.

His research interests include style in design for function, specifically civic design, and web design.

In the past, his work has mostly been in marketing and communications, but he hopes to find a teaching role in the future.

Annaika Khoday She/Her/Hers Onboarding Class was short for me. I left early, but overlay I really enjoyed what the basis of our class is going to be about. Social identity and kind of seeing who I am and how I belong in this world, those activities are awesome. I really enjoy learning more about this.

Context Class was pretty awesome. Our topic of the project was on the Texas abortion law, so there was so much I hadn’t thought about in terms of that law passing. I knew it affected women but I really failed to think about how discriminatory it was against black women. So during the workshop, when we were doing the exercises, I was surprised with how much terminology I didn’t know, but also how it related to black women and the impact of Texas passing the law.

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Define I was definitely sick. So I didn’t really get much done. Though I’m pretty sure I had zoomed with my classmates about the literature review and understood our themes and such.

Last week’s reading was talking about how political design can get.

For example the idea that bridges were created equidistant from the road to only allow certain size cars and vehicles to get through so that poor people who took public transportation couldn’t go through.

I think this relates to our project idea because we’re discussing creatively about how to spread awareness about how black women are discriminated against with the texas abortion law.

Ideate Today’s reading was a bit more challenging for me. Though I believe that the article is talking about how designers should consider ethical and political consequences when deciding what projects to undertake and how to undertake them is uncontentious.

In this sense, any occupational activity, from taxidermy to taxi-driving, is inherently ethical and political. Almost as uncontentious is the claim that designers, by virtue of their professional skills, have a distinctive capacity, hence stand under a distinctive obligation, to help humanity rather than simply enrich themselves. This in regards to our project, could help us understand how to create a design project that will actually help black women and bridge the gaps in understanding why they’re affected more by the Texas abortion law.

Prototype Last class, I made my social media prototypes, which the professor said were too nice.

Though I thought about my designs, I think that the sticker designs can be changed. So for next week, I rebranded the sticker and made it more satirical.

This week I rebranded my sticker design to being funnier and cuter. Instead of an actual penis I drew a banana. On the side of the picture are the words “get a vasectomy” in black bubble letters.

This week I’ve been pretty behind in what needs to be done; I haven’t created a new sticker design. The process book hasn’t begun so we haven’t been able to get much started. Not sure though I’m a bit stressed in regards to where this project is going.

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Impact This week, I finished all my annotated bibliography, currently finishing up my journal entries, finishing up the sticker designs, and will start with the editing project for the book. Our deadline for the project got pushed back another week which should be awesome, except now it’s more stressful.

Final entry This past week, most of the group mates are working on creating the PowerPoint slides, and the final book. I personally finished my own sections so I don’t have much work left. I will be talking about IMPACT the last portion of the design project, which essentially encompasses what the impact of the design project will be on the social justice issue we are focusing on.

Annaika is an M.S Human Factors student at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include Virtual Reality, User Experience Design &amp; research, and Clinical Psychology. In the past, her work has been mainly around working as a clinical research working with individuals that suffer from many neuropsychological disorders. She hopes to find a role as a UX researcher in the future.

Efren Vasquez He/Him/His Onboarding This week I learned that power and privilege is not binary. This means that just because someone is in the power/privileged group in one community doesn’t mean they’ll be in the same group in another community. One of the examples used in class had to do with age. 40’s - 70’s might be a power/privileged group at a university but in silicon valley they would be a marginalized group.

Context One of the things I learned in class this week was the different identifiers. The one that caught my eye the most was some of the systems set in place that can affect people of color. I had never heard of the bridge system before so that led me to find other examples. In the San Francisco Bay area, people have argued that the public transit system is scarce in certain neighborhoods. Along with this, we know of realtors also contributing to racial segregation through different practices like blockbusting and racial steering.

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Define One of the main topics discussed this week had to do with systemic racism. This is racism that exists in our laws and regulations. From the systemic racism video, we also learned that black sounding names have less of a chance of being interviewed over other ethnic names.

Makes you wonder, how many people that were better fit for a job were passed on just because their name sounded black.

We talked about the article “Do Artifacts Have Politics?”. In this article Langdon Winner talks about how certain technologies have political properties. One of the examples he talks about is the bridges in Long Island how they prevented people who rode buses from accessing certain parts. Winner also talks about the main ways that artifacts have politics, by decision and by necessity. We can take a look at this article and see how some technologies (those made by decisions specifically) affect specific people, in our case, Black women in Texas.

Ideate The article “Design Intervention” talks about how we can look at design to solve some of the most complex and challenging problems. The article discussed how designers need to understand all parts of the system. Also, designers need to work with experts in all parts of the system and eventually get them talking to each other so they can align their activities. This article seemed very fitting to our topic and course in general since we are trying to figure out how design can be used to eliminate faith-based racism within women’s healthcare.

Prototype Prototyping is an important step when working for a project whether it is in school or for a job. Prototyping allows you to create concepts with very little resources in order to put ideas together. In class we discussed various types of prototyping and things we would like to do. Wireframing, sketches, and brainstorming were some of the prototype ideas we had for our campaign against abortions.

During class we discussed the different prototypes that we each created. We ended focusing on using the prototypes of social media campaign, website, apparel, and interactive empathy experience (IEE). The main hub for this campaign will be the website. This will house the shop for apparel and the IEE. Social media posts would then link to our website as well.

We presented our prototypes during this week. We did not have a set branding guide and this was evident through all of our prototypes. Although we all had great prototypes, it appeared that they did not all belong together due to the lack of branding. Since we knew this was an issue, we started talking after our presentation on what we can do to improve this. For our next meeting, we will be showing up our branding guide to each other and narrow down exactly what we want to do.

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Impact We presented our high fidelity prototypes to Professor Moses during our live meet up. Things started to take shape and we started heading towards the same direction. Once again, communication is important when working on group projects so we all can understand what duties are. Also this week we discussed how we can measure the impact of our campaign. One of the ways we picked was analytics. Using Google Analytics on the website, we would be able to see who/when visited the Banana Republicans website. Using QR Codes on stickers will also be able to track how many times that sticker was scanned.

Final entry Although difficult at times, I believe that this process will help us in the future when we think about how things are designed. Rather than jumping to a design right away and depending on the topic, it is best to follow the steps we went through in this course. As we have learned through various examples, just because racist tones are not present to the designer that doesn’t mean that it might not be offensive to a particular group of people (for example the Nivea “Re-Civilize Yourself” ad).

Efren Vasquez is a current PhD Graphic Design student at the University of Minnesota.

He has a Master’s degree in Web Design and Online Communications and an MBA from Boise State University. Efren’s research interests include accessibility for the web in higher education websites and the effects that course design has on student anxiety. Once done with the program, Efren hopes to work in academia where he can continue to teach the importance of accessibility for the web.

Jiarui (Gary) Liu He/Him/His Onboarding So glad to be one of this class, everybody has a different identity but we are on the same page. Our social value about sexual harassment, racism is connected.

Context I’m so happy to see everybody introducing their different identity, which includes their race, life experience, hobby etc. Furthermore, this is a great class to discuss context classification, and I always learned the different laws between different states.

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Define The purpose of this class is to understand the concept of “Theory” and “Method”, and we had created a teamwork project. Group members have to research sources about the theory or topic they choose, and also they are able to decide “method”, which is the way to do the project. Otherwise, we discussed the “Define” after Step of “Context”, and define the research challenge questions, and find out what is the current social wicked problem.

The teamwork of the presentation was fantastic, we all had our own duty to define the social problem about the women inequality and healthcare issue., We used the historical method, case study, and data research to clarify the problem. Next step to the #5 Ideally, we need to design our solution to solving these kinds of problems.

Ideate New step is Ideate, team members will choose their new system and new artifact to design their new solution. My preference of the new system would be environment and political, and the artifact I prefer to use is going to be poster design, and comic book creation.

Prototype Finally, we are going to work on the prototype part. Group needs to clarify the topics that are selected by members, and the prototype could be anything creative for creating a campaign. We have many option for doing a campaign, my research topic is the Republican argument against abortion, and I will looking for the relationship between religion and republican. Otherwise, my prototype method is designing a poster to indicate the political relationship.

My group duty of the prototype is brand designing, which means creating a brand identity that perfectly reflects our brand. A brand designer can create elements that shape our campaign branding design and represent our brand’s personality, which is “control is evil”. Our purpose is standing for human right, and against the abortion ban.

My new mission is designing the book coverage of our prototype project, using the title with “Banana Republicans” and indicating our purpose with subtitle “A satirical approach to justice.” I am trying to design the new concept about our campaign on the book cover, and figure out the element of the cover. Creating a new concept that grabs people’s attention to read the book.

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Impact After the review of our group project rough draft last week, we clarified the issue of our project so far, and I changed my type of font for the book cover design. Otherwise, I haven’t done my job yet. There is a lot of content that we need to keep exploring. Efren created a website for our topic, and his color using and digital art creating has strong connection with my book coverage design. I think we are on the right track, and prepare for the final presentation in the final week.

Final entry [MISSING]

Gary Liu, who’s enrolling in the M.A program of Graphic Design major at the University of Minnesota. His fields of interest are interactive design, creative advertising, and 2D design. He graduated from Auburn University with a bachelor’s degree in landscape design and one year of internship experience in an advertising company in China. His goal is to be a UI/ UX designer, or animation designer in the future.

Jack Even Who/Whom/Whomst Onboarding Some of ya’ll have never been stalked and harassed by coworkers or classmates and it shows. We shared an exceptional amount of personal information to complete strangers in an unsecure locaton. I might call this the “wrong foot.”

Context Remember when Google Photo’s AI tagged black people as gorillas?

And their solution was to just remove the tag “gorilla” altogether?

Problems aren’t ever just a simple problem. “Just repeal the bill” or “vote them out” doesn’t fix any of the problems that got us here in the first place. Even when Democrats gain a foothold in a traditionally red district, the hold is tenuous and usually means the elected official is too scared of losing their seat to do anything “liberal” or “dramatic.”

What would help Texas from the top-down is a federal mandate on gerrymandering and a different voting system that isn’t first-pastthe-post. But this is America and that’s not going to happen. So the solution needs to come from the bottom-up.

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Define We went through our theories and methods for exploring the issue of Texas’ abortion bill (2021 edition) on Black Women. Hopefully we divided things up according to people’s strengths.

Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing by Miranda Fricker discussed the issue of groups not having the language they need to discuss their oppression/harassment/etc. And that certain groups, i.e. a white man being harassed into converting religions, may experience singular instances, but that isn’t comparable to woman being sexually harassed in the workplace before they even had a word for sexual harassment. An additional anecdote was the total noneffect “eternal damnation” has on someone who doesn’t believe in the Christian God. I tied both of these ideas to our project: a) neither side can understand the experiences of the other because b) they hold (often but not always) radically different beliefs. That is, “it is murder” vs “that isn’t a baby” and other hot debates.

Ideate Popping the Bubble: The Ethical Responsibility of Design written by Carleton B. Christensen began as a critique of Thackara’s 2004 work In the Bubble: Designing in A Complex World. Christensen argues that the guidance provided by Thackara - to design mindfully - is too large for an individual designer to implement. He continues, saying that Thakara lacks insight into why designers are not designing mindfully and that the structure in place, that prevents designers from acting as individuals, needs to be addressed. More coffee shop, less town hall.

Prototype Yeetus that Fetus: narrowing down potential prototypes. We decided that we did want to use satire and parody in our communication strategy, and to design a campaign targeted to our chosen audience(s), i.e. lawmakers and healthcare professionals. Choosing the main tagline for our campaign, however, left us stumped. Independently of the class session, we threw around “Republicans for Abortion,” “Jesus isn’t a dick so keep him out of my vagina,” and “say no to abortion: get a vascetomy.”

We fucked up. WE GOTTA GO BACK.

Still working on creating a cohesive brand visually, but mentally we seem to be on the same page. Guest critiques pointed us in the right direction but I felt they came too early in the process for us to have a firm grasp on what we wanted to say.

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Impact I received feedback for what was an abysmal first draft of the process book, earning us another week of work. Teammates with high-fidelity prototypes presented them and did a great job - eager to incorporate them into the layout.

Final entry What an absolute nightmare this was.

Jack is a bad apple, rotten to the core

NOTES & DOODLES

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