Gender equality is literally a matter of life or death. The World Health Organization found that mother and child deaths can be prevented when governments improve gender equality, among other things. An extensive review of available research also found improvement in gender equity and contraception-use to be critical factors in reducing maternal and child mortality.
A key part of gender equality is allowing a woman to have the same ability to choose whether or not to have a child as a man. Removing that prerogative is known as reproductive coercion, and it takes many forms. It can include sabotaging contraception, controlling fertility decisions or controlling the outcome of the pregnancy. Reproductive coercion is a form of domestic violence that both men and women are capable of. Mostly commonly it is perpetrated by partners and in-laws, usually removing a woman’s voice from the decision.
The recent removal of the right for United States women to seek abortion has renewed debate on the rights of women around the world. The US Supreme Court’s decision has repudiated decades of progress towards achieving gender equality. And the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive rights policy organisation, believes it is part of a wider push for state-level reproductive coercion: “Almost every reproductive health-related initiative from the Trump administration and social conservatives in Congress has fallen along a spectrum of coercion,” Guttmacher’s communications director Joerg Dreweke writes.
