"Sounds like Something my Great-Grandma Dealt With": Syphilis, Reproductive Health, and Colonial Carcerality

• In Event: Mortality, Health, and Justice Involvement

Abstract

Criminalizing women who live at the margins is harmful to their overall health, safety, and reproductive health. An unprecedented increase in syphilis and congenital syphilis rates among Indigenous, Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian, Black American, and Latina women is linked to a myriad of failures in the healthcare system, systemic racism, and exclusionary practices in both carceral and noncarceral spaces. A large amount of the syphilis and congenital syphilis infections in the past 15 years has disproportionately burdened women of color who have also experienced deep poverty, homelessness, prior incarceration, and substance use. I use data from two qualitative studies I conducted in the southwest - one in southern Colorado and the other in northern Arizona - to interrogate the colonial carceral legacies of reproductive surveillance and neglect among Indigenous and Latina women. I find that the reproductive health impacts of living at the margins, whether or not participants have been incarcerated, are further exacerbated by the interrogations and the dismissals that Indigenous and Latina women experience in healthcare settings. I conclude with participants’ reflections on how providers and healthcare systems can change and better accommodate their needs for respect, dignity, and trust.

Author

• Colleen Hackett, Northern Arizona University