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that reproductive decisions are of greater significance to women than to men.
That does not mean that men individually or collectively representing the
community or the state are not interested in or not affected by fertility decisions
and policies. Rather it stresses that women’s bodies are the key sites of human
reproduction, subject to serious health risks and ideological directives, and so
that women have a greater stake in how reproductive decisions are negotiated
and executed.
Anouka van Eerdewijk 7 points out that population control and reproductive
health are two different approaches to human reproduction. Population
control policies are formulated in relationship to demographic problems.
During the late 1950s, the international community was concerned about the
rapidly increasing population, and the importance of fertility control measures
to control population growth, and particularly in developing countries.
In the mid-1980s reproductive issues became articulated within the discourse
of self-determination and individual rights, rather than focusing solely on
population control and demographics. 8 Feminists argue that the way the population
control perspective defines the problem and the solution makes women fertility
“factors” instead of actors. Moreover the biomedical and top-down demographic
approach pays little attention to the social relations of power affecting human
reproduction. This leads to the promotion of mainly technical interventions
over which women have little control. Advocates of the reproductive health
perspective argue that it is not demographic objectives but women’s health and
bodily autonomy that should be the concern. Because human reproduction
is closely linked to sexuality, reproductive health also requires sexual health.
Reproductive rights claim women’s rights to make decisions concerning reproduction
and encompass the right to the highest attainable standard of sexual
and reproductive health; the freedom to decide when, if, with whom and how
to express one’s sexuality; as well as the freedom to decide on the number,
timing, spacing of one’s children; the right to regulate one’s fertility safely and
effectively; the right to understand and enjoy one’s sexuality and the right to
make these decisions free of discrimination, coercion and violence. 9
7
Anouka Van Eerdewijk, “How sexual and reproductive rights can divide and unite.” European Journal of Women’s
Studies, 8, no. 4, (2001): 421–439.
8
UN, 2003, cited in Baker Maureen. “Restructuring reproduction: international and national pressures”. Journal of
Sociology 44, (2008): 65–81.
9
Appelman and Reyoso, 1994; Dixon-Muller, 1993a, cited in Anouka Van Eerdewijk, “How sexual and reproductive
rights can divide and unite.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 8, no. 4, (2001): 421–439.
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