Population and Reproductive Rights

Concern about rapid growth in population has resulted in inappropriate and sometimes oppressive population control policies being implemented in many developing countries in the past 30 years. This book in the Focus on Gender series highlights the need for an approach which is based on reproductive rights, and stresses the importance of offering family-planning services and information in the context of a comprehensive women's health-care programme linked to women's empowerment. Issues covered are new contraceptive technologies; unsafe abortion and its costs in terms of women's lives and health; the cultural norms underlying attitudes to women's sexuality; and rape as an assertion of male power. Contributors include Peggy Antrobus, Susan Joekes, Renu Khanna, Julia Cleves Mosse, Ruth Pearson, Janet Price, and Ines Smyth.