Matters of Choice : : Puerto Rican Women's Struggle for Reproductive Freedom / / Iris Lopez.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Lopez, Iris,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2008]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (208 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction --; PART I. The Globalization of Sterilization --; PART II. Cultural Continuities and Urban Change --; PART III. Reproductive Rights and an Integral Model of Reproductive Freedom --; Appendix: Genealogical Charts --; Notes --; References --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780813546247; 9783110688610
• DOI: 10.36019/9780813546247
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Iris Lopez.

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.