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ate. Natalist policies may be introduced overtly as in the case of China (the onechild
policy) or Romania (a series of coercive measures to achieve higher fertility,
with severe restrictions on access to abortion and economic sanctions on childless
persons), or covertly, as in the case of the United States (a pro-natalist policy).
Birth rates have been declining since the nineteenth century, and are influenced
by industrialisation, urbanisation and the development of the welfare
state. 12 Juliet C. W. Mitchell 13 remarks that in the late nineteenth century
Western societies experienced simultaneously a sharp decline in fertility and the
rise of feminism, which as well as its dominant struggle for the vote, stressed
the urgency of effective birth control. She argues there are many interrelated
and different causes and that there exists a relationship between declining
fertility and the intensification of demands for the equal rights of women.
Declining fertility is related to improvements in contraception and access to
legal abortion. 14 Today’s demographic transition, the social position of women
and feminist political movements are intimately connected. More competitive
labour markets, low-wage work, rising housing costs, child-care dilemmas,
and concerns about gender equity and marriage instability are discouraging
some people to have any children or encouraging others to limit their family
size. These economic and social pressures shape people’s choices concerning
their reproduction issues. Delayed and reduced fertility may be beneficial to
women’s employment and self-development but still may be perceived as a
looming crisis for some nations. 15
Violation of Reproduction Rights
Reproductive justice means the right to have a child as well as the right not
to have a child. Nidhi Trehan and Isabel Crowhurst 16 remark that historically,
concerning reproductive rights, women’s bodies are critically contested sites of
12
Beaujot, 2000, cited in Maureen Baker, “Restructuring reproduction: international and national pressures”. Journal
of Sociology 44, (2008): 65–81.
13
Juliet C. Mitchell. “Procreative mothers (sexual difference) and child free sisters (gender): feminism and fertility.”
European Journal of Women’s Studies 11, (2004): 415–426.
14
Baker, 2008.
15
Ibid.
16
Nidhi Trehan and Isabel Crowhurst, “Minority groups and reproductive rights,” in Women’s reproductive rights:
Women’s rights in Europe, ed. Heather Widdows, Itziar Alkorta Idiakez and Aitziber Emaldi Cirión (Palgrave Macmillan,
2006), 111–116.
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