The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World (47 page)

Kenyan

Latin American

low birthrates and

methods of

in Nicaragua

Polish

U.S.
See
pro-life movements, U.S.

pro-life movements, U.S.

birth of

international scope of

United Nations and

Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

Punjab

Putin, Vladimir

Qaradawi, Yusuf al-

Qatar

Rajasthan

Rajput, Kajal

Rajput, Rajesh

Rajput, Sunita

Ramírez, Paulina

rape/sexual violence

abortion exceptions for

of Bangladeshi women

gender imbalance and

spousal

as weapon of war

Ravenholt, Reimert

Reagan, Ronald

Red de Mujeres Contra la Violencia

religion.
See also
right/religious right;
specific religions

birthrates and

family planning and

women’s rights and

reproductive rights

backlash against

choice and

economic freedom and

forces at play in struggle over

as human rights

international law and

low birthrates and

as right to reproduce

United Nations and

United States and

women’s rights and, relationship between

right/religious right.
See also
conservatives; pro-life movements

anti-imperialist righteousness of

Bush and

conferences.
See also
World Congress of Families

family planning and

methods of

Muslims and

UNFPA and

United Nations and

women’s rights and

Rising Tide
(Norris and Inglehart)

“Rites and Wrongs” (Ahmadu)

Roa, Monica

Rockefeller, John D.

Rockefeller Foundation

Roe v. Wade

Romania

Romney, Mitt

Rosa case

Rosenbluth, Frances

Rosita

Ruse, Austin

Rushdie, Salman

Rusk, Dean

Russia, birthrate in

Sadik, Nafis

Sáenz Lacalle, Fernando

Sahara Samay

Sahib, Fatehgarh

Sandinistas

Sanger, Margaret

Saudi Arabia

Sauerbrey, Ellen

Sauti Yetu Center for African Women

Schrag, Claudia

Schroeder, Patricia

secularism

Seims, Sara

Sen, Amartya

Sen, Gita

Senegal

September 11

Sex and Destiny
(Greer)

sex determination tests

sex differences

sex selection

activism against

in Asia

in Britain

in China

dowry and

female education and

as “female feticide”

Hindus and

increase in

as middle class practice

as moral labyrinth

overpopulation and

reasons for

in South Korea

in United States

women’s role in choosing

Sharma, Manmohan

Shweder, Richard

Sierra Leone

Sikhs

Simon, Julian

Sinding, Steven

Singapore, birthrate in

Singh, Amarjit

Singh, Balwant

Singh, Harpreet

slavery, infibulation and

Smith, Chris

Solomon Islands

Solórzano, Carmen

Somalia

sons, preference for.
See
sex selection

South Africa, virgins-only factory in

South Korea

Sowinska, Ewa

Spain, birthrate in

“Special Message to the Congress on Problems of Population Growth, A”

Sri Lanka

State Department, U.S.

Steyn, Mark

Sudan

Swaziland

Sweden

Sylva, Douglas A.

Tanzania

Tasaru Ntomonok Girls Rescue Center

Teresa, Mother

Thomas, Franklin

Thomas, Lynn M.

Togo

Tonga

Truman, Harry

Turkey, birthrate in

Turning Point
(McClory)

Tysic, Alicja

Uganda

Ultimate Resource, The
(Simon)

ultrasound

UNFPA

Bush and

China’s one-child policy and

creation of

defunding of

European Union funding for

female circumcision and

“female feticide” and

right-wing opposition to

wartime rape and

United Nations

Bush and

Cairo conference.
See
International Conference on Population and Development (1994)
under this heading

Catholic Church and

Children’s Summit

conference on population (1974)

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

declarations as unenforceable

human rights and

Human Rights Committee

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

International Conference on Population (1984)

International Conference on Population and Development (1994)

Population Awards

population forecasts/research by

pro-life movements and

reproductive/women’s rights and

right/religious right and

UNFPA.
See
UNFPA

United States and

Vatican’s role at

United States

abortion in

anti-abortion efforts by

birthrate in

clandestine abortion in

Europe and, comparison between

family planning in, history of

family policy in

female circumcision in

HIV/AIDS policies of

immigration to

international law and

Muslim immigration to

oral contraceptive approval in

population policy.
See
population policy, U.S.

pro-abortion and family planning efforts by

pro-life movements.
See
pro-life movements, U.S.

reproductive rights and

sex selection in

teen pregnancy in

UNFPA and

United Nations and

vicissitudes of family planning policies

women’s rights in

Uruguay

USAID

Dalkon Shield IUDs and

female circumcision and

ideological shift in

Vanatu

Vatican City, sovereignty of

Vatican II

Waal, Alex de

Walker, Alice

Warrior Marks
(Walker)

Weigel, George

West Samoa

Wilkins, Richard

Willetts, David

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Wills, Garry

women.
See also
girls

career and family aspirations of

economic empowerment of

education of

gender imbalance’s effect on

HIV/AIDS and

justification for subordination of

motherhood and

in Sandinista regime

as social conservatives

treatment of

violence against

women’s rights/women’s rights movements

absence of, dangers in

African statement of

in Bangladesh

Beijing women’s conference and

Cairo conference (1994) and

colonialism and

conflation of Westernization with

conservatism vs..
See also
World Congress of Families

globalization of

as goal of family planning movements

HIV/AIDS and

as human rights

international law on

low birthrates and

men and

population control and

as radical

religion and

reproductive rights as precondition of

sex selection activism of

United Nations and

in United States

Women’s Role in Economic Development
(Boserup)

Women’s Summit (1995)

World Bank

World Conference on Human Rights (1993)

World Congress of Families

World Health Organization

world population

Wu, Harry

Yemen

Young, Gayle

Yugoslavia

Yunus, Muhammad

Zero Population Growth movement

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle Goldberg is an investigative journalist and the author of
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
, a
New York Times
bestseller that was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. Her work has appeared in
Glamour, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, The Nation, The Guardian,
and many other publications. She is a former senior writer at
Salon.com
, and has taught at NYU’s graduate school of journalism.
The Means of Reproduction
won the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.

a

Romania was a brutally ironic choice for a host country. Under the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who outlawed abortion and contraception in 1966, it was a kind of pronatalist police state, where women were subject to random gynecological exams and all miscarriages were investigated. According to scholars Barbara Crane and Jason Finkle, the United Nations hoped that holding the conference in a communist country would help to win over the nations of the Eastern bloc.

b

Ehrlich might have had his revenge had Simon agreed to a second bet. In 1995, Simon wrote in the
San Francisco Chronicle
, “Every measure of material and environmental welfare in the United States and in the world has improved rather than deteriorated. All long-run trends point in exactly the opposite direction from the projections of the doomsayers.” He offered to stake one thousand dollars against “any wrong-headed doomster” on “any trend pertaining to material human welfare.” Ehrlich and his Stanford colleague Stephen Schneider proposed a wager that global warming, greenhouse gases, fishery depletion, deforestation, AIDS deaths, and income inequality would all be worse within ten years. Going back on his challenge, Simon refused.

c

Despite the connection between Islam and female circumcision, it’s important to mention that not long ago clitoridectomy was also occasionally practiced in another chastity-obsessed society, Victorian England. Famed obstetrician Isaac Baker Brown, elected president of the Medical Society of London in 1865, claimed he could cure insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria through the excision of the clitoris. (See Elizabeth Sheehan, “Victorian Clitoridectomy: Isaac Baker Brown and His Harmless Operative Procedure,”
Medical Anthropology Newsletter,
vol. 12, no. 4 [August 1981], pp. 9-15.) In the United States, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, of cornflakes fame, advocated the same operation—as well as the “application of blisters and other irritants to the sensitive parts of the sexual organs”—as a cure for nymphomania. (See John Harvey Kellogg,
Ladies Guide in Health and Disease
[New York: Modern Medicine Publishing Company, 1902], pp. 550-51.)

d

Sex ratio can be defined in several different ways. Internationally, most use the number of boys per 100 or 1,000 girls, which means that discrimination results in high sex ratios. But Indians tend to use the number of girls per 1,000 boys, so that areas of discrimination against girls are said to have low sex ratios.

e

Because so many Sikh men have the last name “Singh,” and Sikh women the last name “Kaur,” when dealing with groups, I’m going to refer to people by their first names to avoid confusion.

f

The one conservative Catholic country with high fertility is Ireland, which averaged 1.93 children per woman in 2006. Ireland’s total fertility rate fell quickly in the 1970s and 1980s—from 3.55 in 1975 to 1.87 in 1995—but never reached levels seen in continental Europe. Ultraegalitarian Iceland was also a demographic outlier, with 2.08 children per woman.

g

One moderate Democrat who has taken it on is Philip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of
The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It. The Empty Cradle
is an interesting book, but it either ignores or glosses over a great deal of scholarship about the link between female-friendly employment policies and higher fertility rates. Interestingly, in the acknowledgments of
The Empty Cradle,
Longman writes that he is “particularly indebted to the work of Allan C. Carlson, which, although not widely known, offers deep insights into the history of the family and its relationship to the growth of both big government and big business.” Longman was both a speaker at the World Congress of Families in Warsaw and a talking head in
Demographic Winter,
in which he seemed to suggest that only a return to patriarchy can stave off the crisis of depopulation.