By Chelsea Silvia
In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, shadowy female figures glide silently through the streets and the bedrooms. In the Republic of Gilead, their destinies were defined by their reproductive parts, with the handmaids’ only task being to bear children for the wives of the Commanders. Handmaids endure a violent re-education process for women who are both fertile and reject the laws of mandatory pronatalism. Running this process are infertile Aunts who constantly remind them of the serious threat of exile to the environmental apocalypse known as the Colonies or to employment as forced sex workers known as Jezebels if they don’t conform.
While it is highly unlikely that this fictious society will become a reality, there is always a possibility of some aspects of it lie in our future as the US moves toward restricting women’s autonomy in making reproductive health decisions by valuing pronatalism. I call for feminist researchers to take a stand today by increasing the amount of research and public awareness of the harmful effects of this agenda and ideology.
Pronatalism is define narrowly as the policy or practice of encouraging the bearing of children, especially government support of a higher birthrate. Rulers and legislators can pass policies that incentivize birth and prohibit attempts to engage in family planning or that limit access to contraceptives and abortions. In other cases, governments may not enact policies, but the society as a whole is swayed by an overall ideology of natalism, defined as a belief that promotes the reproduction of human life. Natalism promotes child-bearing and parenthood as desirable for social reasons and to ensure the continuance of humanity. This set of persuasive cultural norms forces women into reproductive and childbearing roles. These roles are harmful towards both women and their families who do not conform to the expected norms. Motherhood varies from woman to woman, which is why society should not force certain roles on all women.
It is my personal choice to abstain from having children in the future. While the United States is not a particularly dominant society regarding pronatalism, I have still directly felt the effects of natalist ideas directed toward women. “You’ll change your mind one day,” people tell me. “You’re too young to make that decision.” But in fact, I am not too young. I am a strong independent woman, who doesn’t particularly care for children. I am an advocate and user of assisted reproductive technology services, or ART services, which aid with family planning – including a wide range of services from various birth control methods to in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.
Pronatalist societies, such as the Buddhist community in Ladakh, India, experience extreme religious opposition to contraceptive methods, making family planning seen as a sinful practice. Inthe rural areas, the number of children is the highest, mainly caused by the lack of access to ART services. This directly increases the intensity of pronatalism in Ladakh. Buddhists often point to the authority of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, who happens to support the increase in population. Because Buddhists equate contraception with abortion, contraception is immediately categorized as a sin by Dalai Lama’s comments and practices. Preventing pregnancy is synonymous with preventing rebirth since from a Buddhist perspective, family planning interrupts Bardo, the internal liminal time between death and rebirth. In order to allow women proper choices when family planning, she must break some harmful social norms.
Ponatalist bias perpetuates harmful social norms while undermining a woman’s reproductive autonomy. While the goal of pronatalism is to increase population in declining societies, the effects of the ideology and policies are often harmful. In order to combat these flaws, both men and women must work together to begin to redefine pronatalism to mean pro-birth for those who choose it, keeping the notion of choice at the center of reproductive freedom.
Chelsea Silvia is a Junior at East Carolina University. She currently studies German language and culture and cultural anthropology. Chelsea has been a part of the largest student organization on campus for her entire college career, where she plays mellophone for the Marching Pirates. Chelsea is also the German Ambassador for the Foreign Language and Literatures Organization. In her free time, she loves to hike.
It is interesting how many developed nations are now moving toward the implementation of pro-natalist policies as these governments worry about birth rates falling below the ability to replace the laboring population. Part of the incentives being used are beneficial to women: state supported day-care, generous maternity and paternity leaves, subsidized health care, etc. Yet these alone are not always to motivate people to have more children. With the current anti-immigrant sentiments in these countries, the governments are struggling to motivate people to have children and those who choose not to then face those attitudes you are highlighting in your post.