@astronautmanju: CW: discussion of slavery, medical abuse, and racial trauma When people say, “not everything is about race,” they are often imagining race as something separate from our institutions. But race is embedded in our institutions. The history of American gynecology can’t be told without Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey, three of the enslaved Black women who were subjected to experimental surgeries by J. Marion Sims as he developed techniques that would later shape the field. The surgeries were done nonconsensually and without anesthesia. And this history still matters because racial injustices in healthcare didn’t disappear when slavery ended. Today, Black patients continue to experience worse health outcomes, receive inadequate pain treatment, and face persistent inequities throughout the healthcare system. Medical history isn’t separate from racial history. And reproductive health isn’t separate from either. Understanding where our systems came from is necessary to abolish and build new systems for our future. Because the systems we inherit are not the systems we have to keep. Sources: CDC / NPR / NIH / NBC Deirdre Cooper Owens, Medical Bondage Harriet Washington, Medical Apartheid Hoffman et al. (2016), PNAS

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Wednesday 03 June 2026 02:06:29 GMT