Matters of Choice : Puerto Rican Women's Struggle for Reproductive Freedom

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. The globalization of sterilization: birth control or population control? The slippery slope: binary thinking and the ideology of choice The making of the birth control movement in Puerto Rico: universal and unique Changing gender consciousness across generations Cultural continuities and urban change: intergenerational perspectives The Velez family: poverty, the cancer scare, and hysterectomies The Robles family: social change & gender struggle The Gomez family: under the knife again-reversing la operación The morales and rivera families: tough love and sterile choices Reproductive rights and an integral model of reproductive freedom El Matadero: cultural ideologies and inequities in the health care system Beyond choice: toward an integral feminist model of reproductive freedom Appendix: genealogical charts Bibliography Index.