by Nicole C. Bourbonnais
University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2025, pp.259.
ISBN-13:978-0-226-84080-2 / ISBN-10: 0-226-84080-8
From the Introduction by the author
“Where do I start? I could tell you stories of contraband condoms hidden in a Jesuit priest’s suitcase, of busloads of women arriving at a clinic to participate in a contraceptive research trial, of a man walking through the night, flashlight in hand, to attend a talk on family planning the next morning. I could tell you stories of women removing intrauterine devices with their bare hands, of poor men undergoing vasectomies in return for cash payments. I could start with one woman, sterilized in the midst of a complicated labor. Maybe she signed off on the procedure willingly, happy to be rid of the constant threat of unwanted pregnancies, or desperately, in a moment of overwhelming pain and fear. Maybe it was done without her knowledge or consent, a tragic surprise to be discovered the next morning, or many years later, when her attempts to conceive failed over and over.
“Each of these stories captures a different element of the 20th century family planning movement, a movement that brought liberation, devastation, and everything in between. This is an absurd history: of Disney films projecting the benefits of small families, of mobile clinics distributing contraceptives in village squares, of bird flying away with diaphragms hung out to dry. It is a messy history: of spermicidal foams bursting out of tubes, of washable condoms deteriorating in the heat, of expelled intrauterine devices, of cramping, bleeding and pain. It is an emotional history of hope and disappointment, of compassion and suspicion, of personal bonds made and broken. It is a history both intimate and global, unfolding in the smallest of spaces – clinics, bedroom, doorsteps – across the world, intentionally linked together by advocates who saw the need for family planning everywhere, for everyone, by any means necessary.
“To understand this history, we could start with the leaders of the movement…. Or we could start with the policymakers and experts, the people who headed the government programs and foreign aid agencies that funded the movement, developed new contraceptives, and designed model family planning clinics and and communication strategies…. But family planning was never just an ideological debate or political agenda, never just the terrain of prominent activists or policymakers. It was also a daily practice, constantly made and remade through interactions between a host of intermediate actors – doctors, social workers, fieldworkers, consultants, nurses, and volunteers – and the women and men who variously sought out, engaged with, or resisted their efforts to preach contraception at home and abroad. [This book] argues that the global family planning movement was shaped as much – if not more – by these intermediate actors and daily interactions….. [and so it starts with them].”(pp.1-2)
The author is associate professor of international history and politics at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland. She is also the author of Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean.
To order a copy: University of Chicago Press — https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo246541341.html