Matters of choice : Puerto Rican women's struggle for reproductive freedom / Iris Lopez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

López, Iris Ofelia.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reproductive rights--Puerto Rico--History.

Reproductive rights.

Poor women--Puerto Rico--Social conditions.

Poor women.

Poor--Puerto Rico.

Poor.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (213 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Sterilization remains one of the most popular forms of fertility control in the world, but it has received little acknowledgment for decreasing birthrates on account of its dubious use as a means of population control, especially in developing countries. In Matters of Choice, Iris Lopez presents a comprehensive analysis of the dichotomous views that have portrayed sterilization either as part of a coercive program of population control or as a means of voluntary, even liberating, fertility control by individual women. Drawing upon her twenty-five years of research on sterilized Puerto Rican women from five different families in Brooklyn, Lopez untangles the interplay between how women make fertility decisions and their social, economic, cultural, and historical constraints. Weaving together the voices of these women, she covers the history of sterilization and eugenics, societal pressures to have fewer children, a lack of adequate health care, patterns of gender inequality, and misinformation provided by doctors and family members. Lopez makes a stirring case for a model of reproductive freedom, taking readers beyond victim/agent debates to consider a broader definition of reproductive rights within a feminist anthropological context.

Contents:

The globalization of sterilization

The birth control movement in Puerto Rico

Gender awareness across generations

Cultural continuities and urban change

The Velez family: poverty, the cancer scare, and hysterectomies

The Robles family: social change and gender struggle

The Gomez family: under the knife again-reversing la operacion

The Morales and Rivera families: tough love and sterile choices

Reproductive rights and an integral model of reproductive freedom

Ideologies and inequities in the health care system

Toward an integral model of reproductive freedom.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-177) and index.

ISBN:

1-281-95881-6

9786611958817

0-8135-4624-9

OCLC:

437089291