Birth control has historically been used to shape society through governing the reproduction of races believed to be inferior. While the promotion of the birth control pill has enabled many women to have larger sexual freedoms like Annette Funicello pictured above, it has also been used historically to oppress certain groups by trying to curb the growth of minority populations. Moya Bailey and Whitney Peoples, explain how “the eugenics movement targeted poor and Black women.”(1) Their “sexuality was seen as a threat to the wealth of the nation” because they were thought to “[produce] offspring that they could not afford and that the state would have to support.” (2) In response, Margaret Sanger, a birth control activist, “promoted negative eugenics, or lowering fertility in populations that were deemed genetically undesirable in the ideal nation state” by giving birth control pills to poor white and black women. (3) While this gave black women control over their bodies and reproductive health, Sanger's motives stemmed from racist views and stereotypes. Ultimately, she tried to use birth control to regulate black bodies to shape normative society to make it what she believed was better, and therefore, whiter. However, this is not an isolated incident. Throughout the history of America and even today “sterilization abuse [is] a tool of white supremacy.” (4) Other examples include how “Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Native American [women] also experienced high rates of sterilization abuse.” (5) Additionally, the organization CRACK, Children Requiring A Caring Kommunity, “[offered] $200 to women of color using crack if they agreed to long-term or permanent birth control (Hirschenbaum, 2000)”  in the 1990s. (6) Overall, birth control of many forms has been used to oppress bodies of color to keep them from reproducing. It has been deployed to reshape society, to make society “better”, and, hence, whiter. The birth control pill is not a tool used just to normalize individual bodies, but also to try and normalize entire populations through constructing normative gender roles around childcare, assumptions about sex and sexuality, and regulating minority groups thought to be inferior.  

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