History of Family Planning in Twentieth-Century Peru

Abstract

Adding to the burgeoning study of medicine and science in Latin America, this important book offers a comprehensive historical perspective on the highly contentious issues of sexual and reproductive health in an important Andean nation. Raul Necochea Lopez approaches family planning as a historical phenomenon layered with medical, social, economic, and moral implications. At stake in this complex mix were new notions of individual autonomy, the future of gender relations, and national prosperity.

Talking about sexual and reproductive health: counselling encounters in postwar Europe

“…4. For sexual and reproductive health advice and counselling beyond Europe, the US is a well-researched reference point, and valuable scholarship on other contexts includes Ashford (2022), Doyle (2013), Hunt (1999), López (2014) and Mooney (2009). 5.…”

Introduction: The Cultural Politics of Reproduction in Latin America

“…In the 1970s, the Mexican government began implementing family planning policies that resulted in great social inequalities and human rights violations (Sánchez-Rivera, 2021): the Family Planning Plan and the Global Development Plan in 1977, which sought to limit population growth to 1% until 2000, allowed for the systematic implementation of contraceptives and sterilisation processes mostly targeted towards mainly indigenous, working-class families in rural areas of the country. These same population control laws and policies have been repeated in other countries across Latin America, such as through the systematic, involuntary sterilisation of more than 300,000 indigenous people in Peru by Fujimori's administration between 1996 and 2000(Necochea López, 2014 Reproductive violence is a troubling legacy shared by many countries in the region (Schell, 2010).Current debates show the unequal and contested forces that continue to govern access to contraception, abortion and the provision of quality reproductive and obstetric healthcare. Attempts to fulfil development goals (e.g., the Millennium Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals) by improving maternal and neonatal mortality have legitimised the introduction of technologies to medicalise birth and reproduction, resulting in a dramatic upsurge in births by caesarean section in many Latin American countries.…”

“…In the 1970s, the Mexican government began implementing family planning policies that resulted in great social inequalities and human rights violations (Sánchez‐Rivera, 2021): the Family Planning Plan and the Global Development Plan in 1977, which sought to limit population growth to 1% until 2000, allowed for the systematic implementation of contraceptives and sterilisation processes mostly targeted towards mainly indigenous, working‐class families in rural areas of the country. These same population control laws and policies have been repeated in other countries across Latin America, such as through the systematic, involuntary sterilisation of more than 300,000 indigenous people in Peru by Fujimori's administration between 1996 and 2000 (Necochea López, 2014) Reproductive violence is a troubling legacy shared by many countries in the region (Schell, 2010).…”