The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction

Abstract

My work on sterilization and Puerto Rican women is a case study that illustrates the tension between the complexity of poor racialized women’s desire to control their fertility and the oppressive social conditions that shape and constrain their reproductive options. The primary questions my ethnographic research raises are: What constitutes choice and reproductive freedom in the context of poor women’s lives? In what ways are Puerto Rican women’s experiences similar and unique to other poor and racialized women who have been sterilized in the United States and the world? I draw upon my 25-year study to address these questions and conclude with some directions for reaching full reproductive freedom