Legalised non-consensual sterilisation - eugenics put into practice before 1945, and the aftermath. Part 1: USA, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

In the late 19th century, eugenics, a pseudo-scientific doctrine based on an erroneous interpretation of the laws of heredity, swept across the industrialised world. Academics and other influential figures who promoted it convinced political stakeholders to enact laws authorising the sterilisation of people seen as 'social misfits'. The earliest sterilisation Act was enforced in Indiana, in 1907; most states in the USA followed suit and so did several countries, with dissimilar political regimes. The end of the Second World War saw the suspension of Nazi legislation in Germany, including that regulating coerced sterilisation. The year 1945 should have been the endpoint of these inhuman practices but, in the early post-war period, the existing sterilisation Acts were suspended solely in Germany and Austria. Only much later did certain countries concerned - not Japan so far - officially acknowledge the human rights violations committed, issue apologies and develop reparation schemes for the victims' benefit.

Stratified reproduction, family planning care and the double edge of history.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: There is a growing clinical consensus that Medicaid sterilization consent protections should be revisited because they impede desired care for many women. Here, we consider the broad social and ideological contexts for past sterilization abuses, beyond informed consent. RECENT FINDINGS: Throughout the US history, the fertility and childbearing of poor women and women of color were not valued equally to those of affluent white women. This is evident in a range of practices and policies, including black women's treatment during slavery, removal of Native children to off-reservation boarding schools and coercive sterilizations of poor white women and women of color. Thus, reproductive experiences throughout the US history were stratified. This ideology of stratified reproduction persists today in social welfare programs, drug policy and programs promoting long-acting reversible contraception. SUMMARY: At their core, sterilization abuses reflected an ideology of stratified reproduction, in which some women's fertility was devalued compared to other women's fertility. Revisiting Medicaid sterilization regulations must therefore put issues of race, ethnicity, class, power and resources - not just informed consent - at the center of analyses.

"Civil unrest does not stop ovulation": women's prenatal and family planning services in a 1960s Detroit neighborhood clinic.

In 1965, Nancy Milio established a prenatal and family planning clinic in Detroit, Michigan, to address health disparities and limited access to care among low-income, African American, urban women. Women's health disparities persist today nationally and internationally. Using historical methods, this research analyzes how Milio provided women's health services in the context of the social and political environment. Milio empowered neighborhood women to direct, plan, and participate in the care they received. Successful methods to address disparities in access to family and planning and prenatal care should include empowered participation from the women these programs are intending to serve.

The Hyde Amendment at 40 Years and Reproductive Rights in the United States: Perennial and Panoptic.

This Viewpoint discusses the evolution of the Hyde Amendment, which in 1976 prohibited use of medical funds to pay for abortion except when the mother's life is endangered, and efforts since then to nullify the amendment or codify it as a federal statute.

Approaching 4 decades of legislation in the national family planning program: an analysis of Title X's history from 1970 to 2008.

Family planning is an important public health activity. Title X (Pub L No. 91-572), enacted in 1970, remains the only national family planning program in the United States dedicated to providing voluntary and confidential services to all individuals. We conducted a thematic analysis of Title X's legislative history. Of 293 federal bills included in the legislative history, only 20 (6.8%) were enacted into law. Regardless of the proposed challenges, limited changes have been adopted. Except for technical amendments, bills involving restrictions accounted for the highest percentage of enacted bills, demonstrating efforts to undermine reproductive health rights. Title X requires political will and bipartisan support if it is to continue to protect individuals' reproductive rights.

South Africa's abortion values clarification workshops ­ an opportunity to deepen democratic communication missed.

A rich literature exists on local democracy and participation in South Africa. While the importance of participation is routinely built into the rhetoric of government, debate has increasingly focused on the dysfunctionality of participatory mechanisms and institutions in post-apartheid South Africa. Processes aimed ostensibly at empowering citizens, act in practice as instruments of social control, disempowerment and cooptation. The present article contributes to these debates by way of a critique of the approach used by the South African state, in partnership with the non-governmental sector, in what are called abortion "values clarification" (VC) workshops. This article examines the workshop materials, methodology and pedagogical tools employed in South African abortion VC workshops which emanate from the organization Ipas ­ a global body working to enhance women's sexual and reproductive rights and to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries. VC workshops represent an instance of a more general trend in which participation is seen as a tool for generating legitimacy and "buy-in" for central state directives rather than as a means for genuinely deepening democratic communication. The manipulation of participation by elites may serve as a means to achieve socially desirable goals in the short term but the long-term outlook for a vibrant democracy invigorated by a knowledgeable, active and engaged citizenry that is accustomed to being required to exercise careful reflection and to its views being respected, is undermined. Alternative models of democratic communication, because they are based on the important democratic principles of inclusivity and equality, have the potential both to be more legitimate and more effective in overcoming difficult social challenges in ways that promote justice.

Reproductive Governance and the (Re)definition of Human Rights in Poland.

Reproductive rights struggles have continued to dominate public debates in Poland since the political resurgence of the Catholic church in 1989. In 2015, the state passed a landmark "In Vitro Policy" to regulate assisted reproductive technologies. Its religiously based compromises may jeopardize other reproductive rights. I argue that the new policy negotiations demonstrate how versions of competing human rights claims are central to reproductive governance and struggles in the new Polish "ethical order." These negotiations reveal a reciprocal and temporal effect between infertility and abortion laws, in which previously enacted abortion restrictions are used to limit and define "In Vitro" rights.

The history of abortion-related acts and current issues in Japan.

In Japan abortion is categorized into two types by law; one is illegal feticide and the other is legal abortion. The present criminal law forbids feticide in principle and the life of a fetus is protected. However, abortion can be practiced under the "Eugenic Protection Act" established in 1948 (currently referred to as the "Maternal Protection Act"), and is readily available in Japan. In this paper, I have traced the historical origins of abortion law and attempted to clarify the problems related to the current laws relating to artificial abortion. As a result, the existence of contradictions between attitudes toward the life of the fetus and that of the mother, women's right to self determination, and women's rights under current legislation has been clarified.

Abortion law reform in Nepal.

Across four decades of political and social action, Nepal changed from a country strongly enforcing oppressive abortion restrictions, causing many poor women's long imprisonment and high rates of abortion-related maternal mortality, into a modern democracy with a liberal abortion law. The medical and public health communities supported women's rights activists in invoking legal principles of equality and non-discrimination as a basis for change. Legislative reform of the criminal ban in 2002 and the adoption of an Interim Constitution recognizing women's reproductive rights as fundamental rights in 2007 inspired the Supreme Court in 2009 to rule that denial of women's access to abortion services because of poverty violated their constitutional rights. The government must now provide services under criteria for access without charge, and services must be decentralized to promote equitable access. A strong legal foundation now exists for progress in social justice to broaden abortion access and reduce abortion stigma.

A(s) sexualidade(s) no período da amamentação: representações sociais da mulher nutriz / Sexuality (ies) in the period of breastfeeding: social representations of the nursing woman

Introdução. O estudo tem como objeto, as representações sociais das sexualidades da mulher nutriz no contexto da amamentação. Objetivos. Compreender as representações sociais das sexualidades no contexto da amamentação para a mulher nutriz, analisar as formas de agir/comportamento e atitudes da mulher nutriz frente as suas sexualidades acerca da amamentação, propor estratégias a partir das representações sociais das mulheres nutrizes frente à promoção da sua saúde sexual e reprodutiva no diferentes espaços de atendimentos dessas nutrizes. Percurso metodológico. Estudo qualitativo- descritivo, sustentado pela Teoria das Representações Sociais (TRS), desenvolvidono Banco de Leite Humano Santa Ágata, localizado no município de Porto Velho-RO. Foram participantes 110 mulheres nas etapasde coleta de dados referentes à aplicação de questionário do perfil sócio-econômico- demogrpafico e de saúde sexual e saúde reprodutiva e na técnica de associação livre de palavras, desse total, 30 mulheres participaram da entrevista em profundidade. Aprovação ética sob parecer 3.035.088 Resultados e discussão. Após a análise do material coletado através da TALP, o software Trideux emitido um relatório em que foram evocadas 492 palavras relacionadas aos termos indutores, sendo 176 palavras diferentes entre si, das quais26 contribuíram para a organização dos dados compartilhados pelas mulheres nutrizes. As evocações resultantes mostram as diferenças de representações entre as mulheres considerando a idade, o tempo de nutriz e a paridade. As evocações de maior representatividade para a construção dos eixos F1 e F2 foram relação sexual (CPF=200) que surgiu a partir do estímulo indutor sexualidade e normal (CPF=353) que surgiu a partir do estímulo indutor sexualidade na amamentação. A partir dos resultados do software Iramuteq, foram elaborados quatro blocos temáticos: bloco temático I: a cotidianidade da mulher nutriz frente às suas sexualidades, bloco temático II: sentidos e práticas no estabelecimento das sexualidades das mulheres nutrizes; bloco temático III: representação do corpo modificado para a mulher nutriz no contexto da amamentação e puerpério e bloco temático IV: rede de apoio como elemento representativo das vivências das sexualidades no contexto da amamentação. A partir dessas representações constatou-se que o objeto representacional sexualidades está situado em uma rede de representações que integra outros objetos com seus elementos representacionais, que orientam as atitudes, comportamentos e práticas das mulheres nutrizes, evidenciando quea RS está ancorada no retorno à vida sexual. Considerações finais. Os resultados foram importantes para a compreensão do profissional de saúde sobre o constructo social e subjetividades da mulher nutriz, no sentido de promover a atenção à saúde da mulher de forma integrada aos princípios da SSSR.

Introduction. The study has as its object, the social representations of the sexualities of the nursing woman in the context of breastfeeding. Goals. To understand the social representations of sexualities in the context of breastfeeding for the nursing woman, to analyze the ways of acting/behavior and attitudes of the nursing woman towards their sexualities about breastfeeding, to propose strategies based on the social representations of nursing women in the face of promoting their sexual and reproductive health in the different care spaces of these nursing mothers. Methodological path. Qualitative-descriptive study, supported by the Theory of Social Representations (TRS), developed at the Santa Ágata Human Milk Bank, located in the municipality of Porto Velho-RO. A total of 110 women participated in the data collection stages referring to the application of a questionnaire on the socio-economic-demographic and sexual health and reproductive health profile and in the free word association technique, of which 30 women participated in the in-depth interview. Ethical approval under opinion 3,035,088 Results and discussion. After analyzing the material collected through the TALP, the Trideux software issued a report in which 492 words related to the inducing terms were evoked, 176 of which are different from each other, of which26 contributed to the organization of the data shared by the nursing women. The resulting evocations show the differences in representations between women considering age, time of nursing and parity. The most representative evocations for the construction of the F1 and F2 axes were sexual intercourse (CPF=200) that emerged from the inducing stimulus sexuality and normal (CPF=353) that emerged from the inducing stimulus sexuality in breastfeeding. Based on the results of the Iramuteq software, four thematic blocks were created: thematic block I: the daily life of nursing women in relation to their sexualities, thematic block II: meanings and practices in establishing the sexualities of nursing women; thematic block III: representation of the modified body for the nursing woman in the context of breastfeeding and puerperium and thematic block IV: support network as a representative element of the experiences of sexualities in the context of breastfeeding. From these representations, it was found that the representational object sexualities are located in a network of representations that integrates other objects with their representational elements, which guide the attitudes, behaviors and practices of nursing women, showing that SR is anchored in the return to life. sexual. Final considerations. The results were important for the health professional's understanding of the social construct and subjectivities of the nursing woman, in order to promote women's health care in an integrated manner with the principles of SSSR.

Introducción. El estudio tiene como objeto, las representaciones sociales de las sexualidades de la mujer lactante en el contexto de la lactancia materna. Metas. Comprender las representaciones sociales de las sexualidades en el contexto del amamantamiento para la mujer lactante, analizar los modos de actuar/conductas y actitudes de la mujer lactante frente a sus sexualidades sobre el amamantamiento, proponer estrategias a partir de las representaciones sociales de las mujeres lactantes en el frente a la promoción de su salud sexual y reproductiva en los diferentes espacios de atención de estas madres lactantes. Camino metodológico. Estudio cualitativo-descriptivo, apoyado en la Teoría de las Representaciones Sociales (TRS), desarrollado en el Banco de Leche Humana de Santa Ágata, ubicado en el municipio de Porto Velho -RO. Un total de 110 mujeres participaron en las etapas de recolección de datos referentes a la aplicación de un cuestionario sobre el perfil socioeconómico-demográfico y de salud sexual y reproductiva y en la técnica de asociación libre de palabras, de las cuales 30 mujeres participaron en la profundización. entrevista. Homologación ética bajo dictamen 3.035.088. Resultados y Discusión. Luego de analizar el material recolectado a través del TALP, el software Trideux emitió un informe en el que fueron evocadas 492 palabras relacionadas con los términos inductores, de las cuales 176 son diferentes entre sí, de las cuales 26 contribuyeron a la organización de los datos compartidos por las enfermeras. Las evocaciones resultantes muestran las diferencias en las representaciones entre las mujeres considerando la edad, el tiempo de lactancia y la paridad. Las evocaciones más representativas para la construcción de los ejes F1 y F2 fueron las relaciones sexuales (CPF=200) que emergieron del estímulo inductor sexualidad y la normalidad (CPF=353) que emergieron del estímulo inductor sexualidad en la lactancia. A partir de los resultados del software Iramuteq fueron creados cuatro bloques temáticos: bloque temático I: el cotidiano de las mujeres lactantes en relación a sus sexualidades, bloque temático II: significados y prácticas en la constitución de las sexualidades de las mujeres lactantes; bloque temático III: representación del cuerpo modificado para la mujer lactante en el contexto de la lactancia y el puerperio y bloque temático IV: red de apoyo como elemento representativo de las vivencias de las sexualidades en el contexto de la lactancia. A partir de estas representaciones, se constató que las sexualidades del objeto representacional se ubican en una red de representaciones que integran otros objetos con sus elementos representacionales, que orientan las actitudes, comportamientos y prácticas de las mujeres enfermeras, mostrando que la RS está anclada en el retorno a la vida sexuales Consideraciones finales. Los resultados fueron importantes para la comprensión del profesional de la salud sobre el constructo social y las subjetividades de la mujer lactante, con el fin de promover el cuidado de la salud de la mujer de forma integrada con los principios de la RSSS.

Vulnerabilidad impuesta y violación sistemática a los derechos de las mujeres indígenas en México / Imposed vulnerability and systematic violation of the indigenous women rights in Mexico

En México el reconocimiento a los derechos de las mujeres ha transitado un largo camino, acompañado muchas veces de experiencias difíciles para hacerlos valer. Desde 1930 se lucha por el reconocimiento de dichos derechos, se han signado ordenamientos, leyes nacionales e internacionales que norman todo a lo que las mujeres tienen acceso. Sin embargo, los estudios, encuestas y denuncias demuestran lo contrario. Este artículo abordó la problemática que las mujeres indígenas viven en México para que sean respetados y reconocidos sus derechos, específicamente los reproductivos y, particularmente, la esterilización impuesta, que además de violar su derecho a decidir por las instituciones encargadas de cuidar su salud, les genera problemas ginecológicos y rechazo por su pareja (AU).

Women's rights recognition in Mexico has gone through a long way, accompanied many times by difficult experiences to make them true. The fights for the recognition of those rights date back to 1930. Orders, national and international laws have been signed ruling all the rights to which women have access. However, studies, surveys and reports prove the entire contrary. This article approaches the problems affronted by the indigenous women who live in Mexico for the recognition and respect of their rights specially the reproductive ones and, particularly, the imposed sterilization, that besides the violation of their rights to decide from the part of the institutions in charge of taking care for their health, causes them gynecological problems and their couples rejection (AU).

Tacit consent: the Church and birth control in northern Italy.

This article employs novel documentation to examine ways in which the Church's moral rules on contraception were (or were not) communicated to parishioners in a predominantly Catholic context in a period of rapid fertility decline: the diocese of Padua, in the northeastern Italian region of Veneto, during the first half of the twentieth century. The account is based on documents that have until now been overlooked: the moral cases discussed during the periodic meetings among Padua priests in the years 1916­58, and the written answers provided by priests in response to a question asked of them concerning their efforts to combat the limiting of births. This documentation reveals the limited effect on the reproductive behavior of the position of the Catholic Church against birth control.