Challenging Pronatalism Is Key to Advancing Reproductive Rights and a Sustainable Population

Abstract

Social and environmental justice organisations have silenced discourse on human overpopulation due to fear of any association with reproductive coercion, but in doing so they have failed to acknowledge the oppressive role of pronatalism in undermining reproductive autonomy. Pronatalism, which comprises cultural and institutional forces that compel reproduction, is far more widespread, and as damaging to individual liberties as attempts to limit reproduction. The failure to recognise the enormity of pronatalism has led to the wholesale abandonment of voluntary, rights-based efforts toward a sustainable population despite widespread scientific agreement that population growth is a major driver of multiple cascading environmental crises. We examine the full range of patriarchal, cultural, familial, religious, economic and political pronatalist pressures, and argue that the reluctance to address population as a driver of the ecological crisis serves the very pronatalist forces that undermine reproductive autonomy. We posit that addressing overpopulation, and the pronatalism that drives it, must be central to international conservation and development efforts to elevate reproductive rights while also promoting planetary health.

World scientists’ warning: The behavioural crisis driving ecological overshoot

“…However, human reproductive behaviours, like most other behaviours, are greatly influenced by cultural norms and institutional policies and deserve to be investigated critically. 55,56…”

“…58 Depending on the degree of patriarchal and institutional control in a given culture, stigma can take the form of physical and emotional abuse, divorce, economic marginalisation and social ostracisation. 56 The degree of policing individual parenting choices strongly determines the degree of conformity by individuals in a culture or community. This explains why women's stated preferences for number and timing of children vary in accordance with the norms of the community in which they reside.…”

“…34,65,66 These draconian measures not only led to widespread suspicion of any efforts towards population reduction and stabilisation but they also had the opposite effect of strengthening and legitimising the centuries-old form of reproductive control: pronatalism. 56 Currently, half of all pregnancies globally are unintended and 257 million women are unable to manage their own fertility due to oppressive pronatalist norms within their communities. 67…”

“…However, human reproductive behaviours, like most other behaviours, are greatly influenced by cultural norms and institutional policies and deserve to be investigated critically. 55,56 Pronatalism is a set of social and institutional pressures placed on people to have children, often driven by forces such as patriarchy, religion, nationalism, militarism and capitalism. 57 Pronatalism exerts enormous influence on people and their choices.…”

Overshoot

“…It is also ecologically destructive. Bajaj and Stade (2022) posit that addressing overpopulation, and the pronatalism that drives it, must be central to international conservation and development efforts to elevate reproductive rights while also promoting planetary health. Similarly, Shragg (2022; also 2015) argues that taming human population growth is not only decidedly pro-human but also pro-nature in that it slows human-induced ecocide.…”