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Abstract
This Foucauldian genealogy traces the production of sexual and reproductive health with immanent regimes of truth, systems of knowledge, and power relations in the United States. The historical apparatus of federal government is not the locus of sovereign power over public health for sexual and reproductive health. The Constitution of the United States assigned states legal power and authority over public health. How did historical discourse produce the truth of sexual and reproductive health produced (around the male military personnel, the unmarried female, and young people) with relations of power in the federal apparatus? How were historical modes of power linked with the proliferation of sexual and reproductive health over time? However, the multiple and mobile field of multiple economic, political, religious, scientific, social, and technological forces with relations of power constructed, produced, and distributed sexual and reproductive health with apparatus of federal government. In addition, there were multiple and mobile forces and relations of power in the historical apparatus with different regimes of truth, systems of knowledge, and power relations over the history of federal governance. From the Revolutionary War through World War II, federal sexual health focused on the bodies of male military personnel for the prevention of venereal disease coupled with public health legislation for the regulation of female civilians located near military bases. Likewise, from 1970 to present, the President and Cabinet, Congressional legislation and policy, and the Supreme Court were multiple and mobile forces and power relations integral to the federal apparatus. The historical federal apparatus of legislation, policy, politics, Supreme Court rulings, and other federal institutions were integral to programs for family planning, prevention of unmarried pregnancy with sexual abstinence-only-until-marriage, community-based abstinence, welfare reform, and the prevention of sexually transmitted disease, and HIV/AIDS. These federally funded programs addressed problems in specific populations.