While most people believe that the movement to secure voluntary reproductive control for women centered solely on abortion rights, for many women abortion was not the only, or even primary, focus.
...Jennifer Nelson tells the story of the feminist struggle for legal abortion and reproductive rights in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s through the particular contributions of women of color. She explores the relationship between second-wave feminists, who were concerned with a woman's right to choose, Black and Puerto Rican Nationalists, who were concerned that Black and Puerto Rican women have as many children as possible “for the revolution,” and women of color themselves, who negotiated between them. Contrary to popular belief, Nelson shows that women of color were able to successfully remake the mainstream women's liberation and abortion rights movements by appropriating select aspects of Black Nationalist politics—including addressing sterilization abuse, access to affordable childcare and healthcare, and ways to raise children out of poverty—for feminist discourse.
Between 1800 and 1975, sexuality in the West was transformed. Hera Cook shows how the growing effectiveness of contraception gradually eroded the connection between sexuality and reproduction. The ...increasing control over fertility was crucial to the remaking of heterosexual physical sexual behaviour and had a massive impact on women's lives. Dr Cook charts how, why, and when attitudes towards sex changed from the repression of the nineteenth century to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Conservative and progressive religious groups fiercely disagree about issues of sex and gender. But how did we get here? Melissa J. Wilde shows how today's modern divisions began in the 1930s in the ...public battles over birth control and not for the reasons we might expect. By examining thirty of America's most prominent religious groups—from Mormons to Methodists, Southern Baptists to Seventh Day Adventists, and many others—Wilde contends that fights over birth control had little do with sex, women's rights, or privacy. Using a veritable treasure trove of data, including census and archival materials and more than 10, 000 articles, statements, and sermons from religious and secular periodicals, Wilde demonstrates that the push to liberalize positions on contraception was tied to complex views of race, immigration, and manifest destiny among America's most prominent religious groups. Taking us from the Depression era, when support for the eugenics movement saw birth control as an act of duty for less desirable groups, to the 1960s, by which time most groups had forgotten the reasons behind their stances on contraception (but not the concerns driving them), Birth Control Battles explains how reproductive politics divided American religion. In doing so, this book shows the enduring importance of race and class for American religion as it rewrites our understanding of what it has meant to be progressive or conservative in America.
Fit to Be Tied Kluchin, Rebecca M
2009, 20090514, 2009-05-30, 20090101
eBook
The 1960s revolutionized American contraceptive practice. Diaphragms, jellies, and condoms with high failure rates gave way to newer choices of the Pill, IUD, and sterilization.Fit to Be Tiedprovides ...a history of sterilization and what would prove to become, at once, socially divisive and a popular form of birth control.
During the first half of the twentieth century, sterilization (tubal ligation and vasectomy) was a tool of eugenics. Individuals who endorsed crude notions of biological determinism sought to control the reproductive decisions of women they considered "unfit" by nature of race or class, and used surgery to do so. Incorporating first-person narratives, court cases, and official records, Rebecca M. Kluchin examines the evolution of forced sterilization of poor women, especially women of color, in the second half of the century and contrasts it with demands for contraceptive sterilization made by white women and men. She chronicles public acceptance during an era of reproductive and sexual freedom, and the subsequent replacement of the eugenics movement with "neo-eugenic" standards that continued to influence American medical practice, family planning, public policy, and popular sentiment.
Introduction
Contraceptive methods or devices are used to prevent pregnancy. Contraception enables women to realize their human rights and to choose whether or not to have children, as well as helps ...people achieve their desired family size. Currently, short-term family planning methods are available at levels of the health sector, but long-term methods are available at all levels.
Objectives
To assess the knowledge regarding contraception and previous practices of contraception among antenatal women at term pregnancy attending gynaecology OPD.
Methodology
An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted. The total enumeration sampling technique was used, and 120 study participants were enrolled for the study. Data was collected by interviewing participants as per an interview schedule.
Results
The study findings showed that a majority (76.6%) of the antenatal women had poor knowledge regarding contraception and 23.3% antenatal women had average knowledge. A majority (81.07%) of participants had previously practiced contraception. The most commonly used contraceptives were condoms and the calendar method.
Conclusion
In the present study, more than half of the participants (antenatal women) had poor knowledge regarding contraception. It indicates the need for awareness regarding contraception and the appropriate use of contraceptive methods when required.
À Haïti, bien que le gouvernement se soit engagé à améliorer les services de planification familiale, les femmes célibataires sont confrontées à des difficultés considérables en matière de droits ...sexuels et reproductifs. Dans ce contexte, l’objectif de cet article est d’estimer le taux de besoins non satisfaits en contraception (BNSC) chez les femmes célibataires sexuellement actives à Haïti, d’identifier et de hiérarchiser les facteurs associés à la non-utilisation de la contraception dans cette population. L’article utilise les données de l’Enquête Démographique et de Santé la plus récente réalisée à Haïti en 2017 et repose sur des analyses descriptives et une régression logistique binaire. Les résultats montrent que le taux de BNSC chez les femmes sexuellement actives est estimé à 52,9 %, ce qui est largement supérieur à celui des femmes en union (38,0 %). Il a été également observé que l’âge, le département de résidence, l’occupation et le niveau de vie sont les déterminants des BNSC chez les célibataires sexuellement actives. L’âge et le département de résidence sont par ailleurs les facteurs les plus contributifs à l’explication du phénomène étudié. Afin de combler les BNSC des femmes sexuellement actives, les autorités gouvernementales devraient tenir compte de ces facteurs. Il conviendrait surtout d’améliorer les ressources sociales, économiques et politiques des femmes, célibataires mais aussi en union, afin qu’elles puissent prendre leurs propres décisions reproductives et choisir de limiter ou non leurs naissances, par le moyen qu’elles préfèrent.
Suite à la récente « crise des pilules » de troisième et de quatrième générations, les femmes rejettent de plus en plus massivement ce moyen de contraception. Pourquoi la pilule est-elle alors tant ...prescrite en France, en dépit des critiques qu’elle soulève ? Comment est-elle devenue une évidence médicale alors qu’elle ne l’est pas dans d’autres pays ? Ces questions, abordées dans l’ouvrage, sont d’autant plus cruciales que ce standard médical n’est pas sans conséquences : il conduit à amalgamer « pilule » et « contraception », et à définir cette dernière exclusivement comme une « affaire de femmes ».
