Michelle Hartney: Unplanned Parenthood

Unplanned Parenthood is a collaborative mixed media installation about the history of birth control and the role racism played in the fight for reproductive justice in the United States. In 1928, Margaret Sanger published a book called Motherhood in Bondage, a selection of the 250,000 vulnerable and desperate letters the Planned Parenthood founder received in the 1920s asking for advice about birth control and contraception at a time when any information about such reproductive healthcare was deemed “obscene,” and disseminating it was punishable by law. Some wrote that they would rather die than be pregnant again. Many were living in extreme poverty, had abusive husbands, and suffered multiple miscarriages and stillbirths. This installation is centered on the stories of these mothers who longed for reproductive justice.