[The policy of human biological reproduction in Brazil]. / A política de reprodução biológica humana no Brasil.

ABSTRACT

PIP: When examining the issue of human reproduction in Brazil and its historical determinants it must be stated that even primitive societies were regulating fertility, but planning of human reproduction as a movement started around 1922 in the United States through the militancy of Margaret Sanger. This was a time of radical ideological transformation as a result of industrialization and urbanization in North America, which changed the role of women and that of the family. In Brazil the discussion of fertility regulation started in the early 1960s, when the Kennedy administration conditioned its economic assistance to Latin America on the adoption of population control programs, which was not well-received in these Catholic countries. The neo-Malthusian population concept originated in the international agencies, who saw fertility control as a solution to global economic problems. It also found acceptance among elite conservatives in Brazil because of the fear that the growth of poor people could subvert the prevailing social order. Since national interest arguments did not work in Brazil, the programs invoked arguments such as how high parity and high-risk pregnancies would affect the health of the mother; the disproportion between the number of children and family income of the poor; and the control of induced abortion. The economic development in Brazil in the 1950s was the basis of accepting neo-Malthusian reasoning. The debate about these programs involved the whole society. The Catholic Church, however, was the major opponent of a government-supported fertility control program. The capitalist state has assigned to women the role of reproducer and primary socializer of children, regarding motherhood as their principal role, and the control of access to contraceptives meant the continued subordinated of women in capitalist and patriarchal societies.