Title: Coercive sterilisation: its eugenical underpinnings and current manifestation.

POPLINE Document Number: 119488

Author(s):

Lewis DJ

Source citation:

Ann Arbor, Michigan, UMI Dissertation Services, 1995. [4], iv, 119 p.

Abstract:

Although the manifestation and implementation of coercive sterilization have changed throughout history, this practice has consistently disproportionately affected poor women, the disabled, and women of color. Sterilization can be considered coercive if an individual cannot legally give informed consent, due to mental incapacity or age, or is deceived or compelled to accept the procedure. Both feminists and eugenicists who pushed for birth control in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the US, Canada, and the UK shared a racist, classist social ideology. Disguised as a science, eugenics provided support for the view that reproduction by certain groups of women would produce a deterioration in the moral and intellectual fiber of society. Through its exclusive emphasis on sexism, the contemporary feminist movement has ignored race and class oppression. Recent claims of a racial basis of intelligence, beliefs that poverty amelioration depends on the poor limiting their fertility, and proposals for human genetic engineering have created conditions for a resurgence of eugenics. The current practice in Canada of failing to fully inform Aboriginal and disabled women of their options before sterilization and promotion of Norplant implants are examples of continued reproductive abuse. Needed is an international feminist movement that advocates for all women's right to reproductive choice.

Keywords:

Canada
United States
United Kingdom
Involuntary Fertility Control
Female Sterilization
Eugenics
Social Discrimination
Family Planning Programs
Informed Consent
North America, Northern
Americas
Developed Countries
North America
Europe, Western
Europe
Family Planning Policy
Population Policy
Social Policy
Policy
Sterilization, Sexual
Family Planning
Genetics
Biology
Social Problems
Programs
Organization and Administration