Population Controllers and Feminists:

Strange Bedmates at Cairo?

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Versions of this paper were presented at the 1996 Population Association of America Meeting and the 1995 Social Science History Association Meeting. We are grateful for comments from Debbie Barrett and Susan Greenhalgh, for conversations with José Barzelatto, Judith Bruce, Paul Demeny, Lynn Freedman, Amy Higer, Carolyn Makinson, Faith Mitchell, Shara Neidell, Steve Sinding, Sylvia Tesh, Nahid Toubia, and Charles Westoff, and for interviews with Susan Davis, Joan Dunlop, Adrienne Germain, Barbara Crane, Margaret Hempel, Elizabeth McGrory and Tom Merrick.

The Programme of Action (United Nations, 1994) adopted at Cairo is intended to establish international population policy for the subsequent two decades. It is an unusual population policy document. The phrase "population problem" never occurs in its pages; more significantly, no demographic factor is identified as the principal cause of any problem, and few demographic changes are sought. The Programme assigns (Principle 4) an explicit feminist agenda to population programs:

Advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women, and ensuring women's ability to control their own fertility, are cornerstones of population and development-related programmes.

The purpose of population programs is promoting reproductive health, defined (7.2) as ensuring women "the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so." A family planning program is an appropriate part of such a program (7.12), if it employs no "form of coercion," uses no "incentive and disincentive schemes," and imposes no demographic "targets" or "quotas" on providers. The document melds feminist and human rights rhetoric into a programmatic position that bans explicit attempts to influence reproductive behavior.

Yet a neo-Malthusian subtext still runs through much of the Programme and occasionally breaks through to the surface of the document (3.14):

Slower population growth has in many countries bought more time to adjust to future population increases. This has increased those countries' ability to attack poverty, protect and repair the environment, and build the base for future sustainable development. Even the difference of a single decade in the transition to stabilization levels of fertility can have a considerable positive impact on quality of life.

The presumptions of a population control movement that for nearly half a century has sought to make fertility reduction an important objective of international policy are invariably made: low rates of population growth are beneficial; more rapid fertility declines are better than slower declines; and population stabilization is an ultimate goal.

Despite this mild neo-Malthusianism, in volume the feminist's commitment to the rights of the individual woman is granted much more significance than the population controller's emphasis on the prerogatives of the group. The Programme offers a rationale for this bias by asserting (3.16) that "eliminating social, cultural, political and economic discrimination against women" is a "prerequisite" for "achieving balance between population and available resources." Protecting the individual rights of women is thus presented as an indispensable means for achieving aggregate neo-Malthusian ends.

Cairo distinguishes itself from earlier population conferences by having its population control strategies depend so extensively upon attaining feminist aims.⁽¹⁾ The agenda of the population control movement coalesces with that of the feminist reproductive health movement in the Programme of Action, and both population controllers and feminists at Cairo spoke in terms of a "common ground." Population controllers commit themselves to a gender equity strategy for attaining population stabilization, and programmatically agree to supplement family planning activities with reproductive health activities that add several times to program costs. Feminists gain an ally for gender equity campaigns and a commitment to additional funding for women's health programs. They offer only lukewarm support for neo-Malthusian goals, and that support is heavily circumscribed with human rights rhetoric regarding choice.

What conditions make a viable alliance between population controllers and feminists likely? This question takes us beyond the specific terrain of Cairo and into a historical consideration of population control and feminism as social movements with ideologies, strategies and resources, including money, members, and organizational allies.⁽²⁾ Histories of the population control movement privilege individuals and organizations, and accounts of Cairo privilege individuals and interest groups (Piotrow, 1973; Donaldson, 1990; Harkavy, 1995; Campbell, 1993a; McIntosh and Finkle, 1995). Our story, in contrast, treats population control and feminism as social movements; ones aimed at influencing state policy. It privileges ideologies -- the set of beliefs that give coherence to the collective activities of a movement (Buechler, 1990: 85) -- and the way that ideologies are framed, and re-framed, in specific political and social contexts (Goffman, 1974; Snow et al 1986; Mueller, 1992). We also consider the extent to which the population control movement and the feminist movement had common goals and their perceptions of mutual benefit. As we shall see, feminists and population controllers are neither natural allies nor natural opponents. At some periods alliances were impossible, whereas in others real alliances were formed.

The ideological belief that informs American feminism has been consistent over the past century: an unacceptable inequality exists between women and men.⁽³⁾ Despite this degree of unity, the feminist movement has often been divided. The main fault lines have been between liberal feminists who emphasized removing legal barriers to women's equality with men, and more radical feminists who emphasized that equality could only be achieved through the establishment of positive rights requiring a more profound transformation of economic and social structures (Freedman and Isaacs, 1993). Only occasionally did some feminists call for recasting the reproductive role of women as a way of redressing inequality. Margaret Sanger and the early birth controllers were one such group of feminists.⁽⁴⁾

Population control is more difficult than feminism to define ideologically since it does not refer to a single movement. A number of ideological movements have had objectives that required the molding of aggregate demographic processes. Eugenists believed that the quality of a race was genetically determined, and sought to enhance it by influencing the fertility of the "less capable" and the "more capable." Immigration restrictionists believed in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon stock that settled colonial America, and sought to preserve its hegemony by restricting entry into the US of those from different backgrounds. Neo-Malthusians believed that population growth was a major cause of poverty, and sought to enhance prosperity by fostering the practice of contraception. Pronatalists believed declining numbers would sap the nation's strength, and sought to revitalize the nation by encouraging births. Although motivated by different ideological beliefs and seeking different objectives, the advocates of all these movements are "population controllers" since all had clear demographic goals.⁽⁵⁾

In this paper, we confine our examination to the interaction between American feminists and American population controllers. We recognize the important international component to both social movements, evidenced by international meetings and considerable cooperation among activists from many countries, and we recognize that the Programme of Action is a document that was fashioned by numerous actors, among whom Southern feminists were prominent. However, the ideology and objectives of social movements are still crucially responsive to national conditions. A focus on American feminists and American population controllers is justified because their relationship has much to do with international population policy assuming its present form⁽⁶⁾; understanding the dynamics of this relationship in the US will provide a special insight on the formation and viability of that policy. Our analysis encompasses the period between the early 20th century and Cairo.

Feminists and population controllers have encountered each other during recurring attempts each has made to shape reproductive behavior by influencing state policy. Examining a long period of interaction will allow us to identify the conditions under which alliances develop and flourish. First we will examine early 20th century encounters, when most American feminists were focused on gaining suffrage and when American population controllers were motivated by compositional concerns rather than neo-Malthusian worries. We divide the post-WWII era into four periods: 1945-1965, 1965-1974, 1974-1985, and 1985-1995. This periodization is based on important events in one or both of the movements and is somewhat arbitrary since there are trends that cross several periods.

The 1945-65 period is characterized by a quiet alliance between a growing number of neo-Malthusians, located primarily in foundations and universities, and a mildly feminist planned parenthood movement. It ends with the adoption of an international population control policy by the US government and the establishment of the National Organization for Women (NOW). The period from 1965-1974 is characterized by a rapid growth in the resources of the neo-Malthusian movement and its extension to the United Nations. There is a revival of the feminist movement which had been quiescent since the 1920s, and with it the beginning of feminist critiques of international population control, many of them from the left and largely ignored. The 1974-1985 period begins with a turning point for neo-Malthusianism, when the international community rejects calls for an all-out fertility control campaign at Bucharest and adopts instead a mild developmentalist position that ensconces birth control firmly within individual rights rhetoric. Combat with a pro-life movement aroused by the Supreme Court's Roe vs Wade decision in 1973 rallies American feminists around a pro-choice reproductive agenda that becomes a requirement for feminist identity. The last period, 1985-1995, sees the further weakening of neo-Malthusian ideology and the skillful elaboration of a feminist population policy and a strategy with which to implement it.

Population Control and Feminism: An Early Alliance

This century began with President Roosevelt enunciating the ideology of the contemporary population control movement. He decried "race suicide," declaring (1907: 550) that "the greatest problem of civilization is to be found in the fact that the well-to-do families tend to die out; there results, in consequence, a tendency to the elimination instead of the survival of the fittest." Elite women, many of whom were deeply involved in the suffrage movement, were subject to special censure for their low rate of marriage and their few children. Roosevelt called on them to be good "soldiers" for their nation (1911: 767): "Exactly as the measure of our regard for the soldier who does his full duty in battle is the measure of our scorn for the coward who flees, so the measure of our respect for the true wife and mother is the measure of our scorn and contemptuous abhorrence for the wife who refuses to be a mother." At the time eugenists worried that the "prudent and thoughtful" ("whose children the race needs") would be the ones to practice of birth control, while knowledge of contraception was unlikely to affect the fertility of the "reckless" lower classes (Clarke, 1896: 357; Popenoe, 1917: 6).

Although charged with deficient childbearing, many suffragists harbored nativist sentiments that made them sympathetic to much of the agenda of eugenists and immigration restrictionists.⁽⁷⁾ Yet this attack by population controllers on their patriotism, and on their femininity, had to be answered. Very few accepted the call to be "good soldiers" and put their bodies on the front lines in the battle against race suicide.⁽⁸⁾ Only a minority actively defended the small family.⁽⁹⁾ The majority chose to sidestep a direct confrontation with a movement that had a president as a spokesperson. They accepted (Gordon, 1990: 141) "the eugenic logic of race suicide theory," but questioned the eugenic efficacy of making women bear unwanted children who "were likely to be neglected and therefore inferior." The suffragist's goal was to convince a substantial majority of male legislators that giving women the vote was wise social policy. In the cultural climate of the early twentieth century, this could best by done by depicting woman as strong upholders of traditional values whose presence in the voting booth would lend support for moral renewal. In this case not advancing a reproductive rights agenda was thought to further feminist goals. However, new feminist voices, ones that spoke explicitly of the need for women to gain control of their reproductive destinies, made this strategy difficult to sustain.

Emma Goldman, the anarchist, attended the 1900 Paris Neo-Malthusian Conference and began promoting (Woloch, 1984: 367) contraception and "voluntary motherhood" in lectures and in her periodical, Mother Earth. She took a socialist neo-Malthusian position, calling on (1916: 470) working women as a class to "no longer be a party to the crime of bringing hapless children into the world only to be ground into dust by the wheel of capitalism and to be torn into shreds in trenches and battlefields." The working class could improve its negotiating position with capitalists by restricting the production of new workers, and they could crimp the expansionist plans of militarist leaders with "birth strikes." Margaret Sanger, who did most to establish the birth control movement in the United States, initially adopted much of Goldman's orientation. A socialist and member of the International Workers of the World, Sanger founded The Woman Rebel in 1914 to bring knowledge of contraception to the masses. Sanger was also a member of "the new intellectuals" among American socialists who argued (Buhle, 1983: 259) that "sex be made a major issue of revolutionary politics and women's liberation." At a time when most American socialists were active supporters of social purity objectives and were busy attacking (Buhle, 1983: 257) "prostitution as capitalism's ultimate degradation," the new intellectuals were reading Freud, Havelock Ellis, Ellen Key, and Edward Carpenter and attempting to usher in (Buhle, 1983: 268) an "era of sexual enlightenment and freedom."

Both Goldman and Sanger purposely broke laws and attracted crowds and enormous attention for "birth control," the term coined in 1914 to represent Sanger's campaign (Chesler, 1992: 97). Contraception and small families now were linked to feminism, radicalism, and sexual liberation, and were shown capable of mobilizing women, much as protecting women's right to abortion was to do in the post-Roe vs Wade era. But suffragists were ambivalent about the movement. The interest surrounding birth control announced a new facet of feminism, more radical and sexual, that attracted a younger and more nonconformist constituency for their cause. This new sexual agenda, however, frightened a public just coming to accept the suffrage rationale that women's rights advocates had carefully constructed over decades. When Sanger sought allies in the women's movement by asking (Gordon, 1990: 233-236) fifty prominent women in 1915 to state publicly that they believed in and practiced birth control, she was turned down and told "wait until we get the vote." When she asked Carrie Chapman Catt for use of her name as sponsor for the American Birth Control League, Catt responded that while "I am no enemy of you and yours... Your reform is too narrow to appeal to me, and too sordid." If feminists in the 1910s had a "common ground" position, it was that suffrage was their primary objective. The struggle for women to control their reproductive lives did not provide a foundation for feminist unity as it does today.

The birth control movement underwent rapid and consequential change from 1915 to 1920. Sanger started the decade unequivocally on the left: taking part in IWW strike actions; publishing in The Woman Rebel articles defending assassination and denouncing marriage. In 1914 she fled the country to escape prosecution for breaking the Comstock laws. Yet on her return she adopted (Woloch, 1984: 373) a rhetoric that was more neo-Malthusian and eugenic than anti-capitalist: more birth control would lead to less poverty and fewer defectives. She even argued that only medical professionals ought to distribute contraceptives, a less radical position than that taken by Mary Ware Dennett, a middle-class activist whose National Birth Control League was fighting for the unfettered distribution of contraceptive information. In 1917 she began publishing the Birth Control Review, a considerably less incendiary journal than The Woman Rebel, and she broke her ties with the left. By 1920 Sanger had forged a birth control movement, led by middle-class women, aimed at procuring for doctors the legal right to distribute contraceptives to women.

Yet even after the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women suffrage in 1920, Sanger could not get women's organizations to support legalizing contraception. Birth control remained too controversial and too potentially divisive for the National Woman's Party, the National League of Women Voters, and even the Child Welfare and Social Hygiene Committees of the League of Women Voters to support.⁽¹⁰⁾ Sanger had much greater success when seeking support from a variety of population controllers. She had Edward Alsworth Ross write (1920) neo-Malthusian defenses of birth control in the Birth Control Review. She recruited two eugenists to serve on the board of the American Birth Control League: Lothrod Stoddard, author of The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, and C. C. Little. She organized an International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference (New York, 1925), and a World Population Conference (Geneva, 1927) that brought together neo-Malthusians, eugenists, and birth control advocates. She was instrumental (Hodgson, 1991) in the formation of both the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Problems and the Population Association of America.

During the 1920s Sanger developed a rationale for birth control that neatly combined feminism, neo-Malthusianism, and eugenics. For Sanger (1922: 11) "birth control is the means by which woman attains basic freedom," and therefore is a feminist endeavor. It is also a neo-Malthusian enterprise (1922: 204-205): "A science which teaches that poverty and social evils can be greatly reduced by encouraging people to have small families." Additionally, birth control is the foundation for all eugenic programs (1919: 12): "Eugenics without Birth Control seems to us a house built upon the sands." Sanger never approved of the state coercing women to bear children, but she did approve of the state limiting the reproduction of the unfit, for instance by offering (1926: 299) "a bonus or a yearly pension to all obviously unfit parents who allow themselves to be sterilized by a harmless and scientific means." She held (1925: 31-32) that certain conditions "demand the exercise of birth control": having a heritable disease; having had a defective child; and even being poor. Such positions earned Sanger the support of most eugenists, and the American Eugenics Society formally endorsed Sanger's birth control campaign in 1933 (Chesler, 1992: 343).

Many eugenists had changed their assessment of birth control during the 1920s. It had become so prevalent among the "higher quality stock" that they no longer feared its legalization.⁽¹¹⁾ A new interpretation of fertility trends contributed to this reversal. A general downward trend in the fertility of all class and ethnic groups had become evident and the inverse relationship between class and fertility that panicked the turn-of-the-century eugenist now appeared to be temporary.⁽¹²⁾ This changed assessment placed their alliance with birth controllers on a solid foundation. Both movements shared a common demographic goal of increasing the lower class' access to birth control. Both movements perceived mutual benefit in an alliance. Eugenists thought themselves lucky to have partner who could market birth control as a way to better health and well-being, not as a preventive for race degradation, and Sanger much appreciated the prestige and scientific credentials that eugenists brought to her cause of convincing the public of the need to legalize access to birth control. Finally, both parties shared certain ideological premises: a conviction that societal benefit would come from the "less fit" having fewer children.

Shared demographic goals, perceived mutual benefit in an affiliation, and compatible ideologies appear to be the preconditions for a lasting alliance between feminists and population controllers. This particular alliance lasted through the 1930s, and in fact became so strong that some saw (Fairchild, 1940) the two movements merging: "One of the outstanding features of the present conference is the practically universal acceptance of the fact that these two great movements [eugenics and birth control] have now come to such a thorough understanding and have drawn so close together as to be almost indistinguishable." During that decade Sanger withdrew from leadership positions in the birth control movement. By 1939 the Birth Control Federation of American, formed by the merger of Sanger's Clinical Research Bureau and the American Birth Control League, was led (Chesler, 1992: 392-393) by male professionals who were calling (McCann, 1994: 134) for more babies from the fit.

Although American eugenists suffered severe setbacks during the 1930s, feminism as a distinct movement fared even more poorly, and nearly disappeared from the American scene.⁽¹³⁾ Those within the birth control movement whose primary goal was to further gender equity were unable to prevent the systematic distancing of the movement from its feminist roots, symbolized by its rechristening as the "Planned Parenthood Movement" in 1942 (Gordon, 1990: 340). Apparently alliances can weaken as well as invigorate a movement.

Population Control and Feminism, 1945-1965: A Second Alliance

Changes wrought by World War II significantly altered American population control movements. Although few American eugenists ever repudiated their beliefs, knowledge of Nazi eugenic actions lessened the public acceptability of categorizing people into "higher races" and "lower races" or attempting to qualitatively shape populations by promoting negative racial eugenic programs.⁽¹⁴⁾ The unexpected post-war baby boom also ended the fears of domestic depopulation that had produced a significant pronatalist movement during the late 1920s and 1930s.⁽¹⁵⁾ At mid-century few thought domestic demographic trends to be problematic.

However, when certain American students of population, primarily located at Princeton University, turned to what were then called the underdeveloped regions, they saw much cause for alarm. These population specialists played an influential role in elaborating the ideology of the post-War neo-Malthusian movement. Initially much attention focused on the large population of newly independent India. When it was viewed in conjunction with India's limited arable land, the specter of more people than food appeared to be a near-term possibility. Controlling population size seemed essential to averting famine and malnutrition. Since similar population/resource relationships were common in Asia, the population crisis was initially framed as a peculiarly "Asiatic problem."⁽¹⁶⁾ Would food and natural resource supplies be adequate to feed, clothe, and shelter large and dense populations which were growing larger and more dense? Would there be sufficient resources for such populations to urbanize and industrialize even if their basic needs could be meet?

At first these academics were pessimistic about the possibility of stimulating fertility decline by bringing contraception directly to peasants (Hodgson, 1983). They had just encapsulated the demographic history of Western populations into demographic transition theory, in which fertility decline was identified as a consequence of industrialization and urbanization. Now, however, when examining the situation of postwar underdeveloped regions, they concluded that population growth trends were hindering efforts to transform traditional agrarian economies into modern industrial ones. This posed a demographic conundrum: the modernization process was being stymied by a demographic stumbling block which itself, according to their understanding of demographic/economic interactions, could only be humanely eliminated through rapid modernization. Although they had no feasible, non-catastrophic resolution to this conundrum, they did not immediately recommend family planning programs for peasants since they feared that peasants would be little motivated to practice contraception.

Birth controllers were considerably less gloomy about prospects for family planning in less developed countries. In 1946 Margaret Sanger came out of retirement in an effort to internationalize the planned parenthood movement (Chesler, 1992: 407- 463), attending a family planning meeting in Stockholm, Sweden where a call for an international planned parenthood organization was initiated. In 1948 she organized the International Congress on Population and World Resources in Relation to the Family in Cheltenham, England, attended by representatives from 17 countries and from the newly formed United Nations. She was appointed chair of the committee that formally established the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) at the Second International Conference in Bombay, India, in 1952. Sanger co-directed the IPPF until her retirement in 1959, and imprinted it with her feminist belief that birth control was essential for women's freedom. The IPPF during this period, however, was not particularly well funded, and its ability to aid in the establishment of many family planning clinics in less developed countries was limited. Sanger probably made more of an impact on the ability of Third World women to control their fertility by counseling heiress Katherine McCormick to fund the birth control pill research of Gregory Pincus and John Rock than she did by her IPPF labors.

Significant funds for a global fertility control effort did begin to flow in 1952. These funds, however, were largely funneled (Piotrow, 1973: 15-18) to the population specialists, not the IPPF birth controllers. John D. Rockefeller 3rd convened a conference in 1952 under the auspices of the US National Academy of Science to examine the growing imbalance in Asia's vital rates (Notestein, 1982: 676-677; Bachrach and Bergman, 1973: 44-46). Five months later the Population Council was established with Rockefeller as its president. During that same year the Ford Foundation began funding population activities (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1986: 32). New university programs trained specialists on the population problems of developing countries, and the research on a contraceptive pill increased optimism that focused interventions were possible. By the mid-1950s most of the university-based population specialists were advocating efforts to bring birth control "directly" to peasants. Pilot family planning projects were begun in India and elsewhere.

Such activities were considered quite controversial during the 1950s. At the United Nations' World Population Conference held in Rome in 1954, a coalition of Catholics and communists prevented consideration of any action agenda.⁽¹⁷⁾ While he was president Dwight Eisenhower feared Roman Catholic opposition and refused (1963: 27) to support international fertility control: "When I was President, I opposed the use of Federal funds to provide birth control information to countries we were aiding because I felt this would violate the deepest convictions of a large group of taxpayers." Yet voluntary family planning programs were excellent philosophical complements to the free-market based, gradualist development strategies being promoted by US foreign aid programs, and powerfully positioned neo-Malthusians began making concerted efforts during the late 1950s to get government support for the movement.⁽¹⁸⁾

Meanwhile alliances were made between planned parenthood proponents and the population specialists. Planned parenthood representatives and members of The Population Council met (Piotrow, 1973: 14) in 1955, 1956, an 1957 "to develop and define general principles for promoting birth control overseas." Population Council and IPPF representatives discussed (Chesler, 1992: 443-444) contraceptive technology in 1957, and planned small field tests of the birth control pill in Los Angles and in Puerto Rico. By the early 1960s they would develop a standard choreography for encouraging Third World governments to adopt national family planning programs. First foundations would grant fellowship support for nationals to study demography at the US population centers where they would absorb a crisis orientation toward population growth. Next a "KAP" survey of the population's knowledge, attitudes, and practice of contraception would be undertaken. The survey results would be used to document the existence of a "ready market" for birth control, to convince any skeptical national leaders and bureaucrats that family planning was possible,⁽¹⁹⁾ and to prepare the way for the national planned parenthood association, with financial and technical assistance from the IPPF, to establish a limited number of clinics within the country. Successfully operating private clinics would be used to demonstrate the feasibility of establishing a national family planning program.

Initially some tensions existed between the two partners in the alliance. During this period planned parenthood proponents were even more action-oriented than the population specialists. William Vogt, president of PPF of America, wrote one of the earliest and most influential of the postwar neo-Malthusian tracts, Road to Survival (1948), at a time when population specialists still questioned the usefulness of family planning campaigns. And when Hugh Moore published a shrill neo-Malthusian tract in 1956, The Population Bomb, the IPPF welcomed (Piotrow, 1973: 18-19) him into its ranks while the population specialists tried to distance themselves from such extremism. Strains also arose from differences in the power and financial strength of these two players (Stycos, 1968: 25):

For decades in the United States, small organized groups of courageous women have been insisting that the health and social welfare of the woman depend on the ability rationally to regulate the number and timing of her births. Such arguments received the degree of respect and attention normally accorded to small organized groups of courageous women in the United States. At the same time, however, a handful of less vociferous but more influential men of affairs began to be concerned about the economic and political implications of world population growth, and in particular, about the growth of the under-developed areas. Their fears included Starvation, Unrest, War, and Communism.... When thrown together at an occasional conference, they regarded each other with the combined suspicions and hope of exploitation found only at a social function of Ivy League boys and townie girls.

Some population specialists at first doubted the usefulness of IPPF's "feminist" bias, worrying that providing contraception exclusively to females might lessen its acceptability in male-dominated societies. At Sanger's Cheltenham Conference in 1948 Frank Lorimer proposed (Chesler, 1992: 410) "isolating contraception from what he perceived to be the complicating and variable factors of gender relations and sexual ethics," and argued against the planned parenthood method of establishing family planning clinics for women. Dudley Kirk, speaking to an IPPF audience in New Delhi in 1959, recommended (Chesler, 1992: 451) that "male" methods of contraception, specifically condoms and withdrawal, be used in India in preference to expensive "female" ones that required a medical infrastructure. J. Mayone Stycos complained (1962: 481-482) that IPPF's feminist bias led to an "emphasis on female methods for female patients, and the justification of family planning largely in terms of its benefits for the female... Even the most effective male methods are viewed with some suspicion." However, there was little evidence of male interest in using the methods at their disposal, such as withdrawal. Eventually, the neo-Malthusians agreed with their partners that there would be a nearly total reliance on female methods of birth control, and thus that women would be the targets of family planning programs (Watkins, 1993).

Most population specialists came to view the IPPF's moderate feminist rationale for family planning as a valuable supplement to their other economic arguments for fertility control. They were in no way pressured into accepting this position by feminists, since no feminist movement existed at the time. Acceptance was based on their belief that the traditional social structures of agrarian societies were organized in ways that induced high fertility and were dominated by males. In such a context they came to hope that women might be desirous of controlling their fertility but simply lack the means to do so. A family planning program might, therefore, fulfill a suppressed female demand for birth control. Although not interested in equalizing gender relations in Third World societies, population controllers were looking for evidence that family planning programs would work in such societies. On this score, the mild feminist assumptions that informed the birth control movement -- that all women desire to gain control of their reproductive destinies -- provided grounds for optimism at a time when few other reasons for optimism could be discerned.

By 1960 both planned parenthood proponents and population specialists sensed that the public was ready to support an overt neo-Malthusian movement. Nobel laureates signed statements condemning the scourge of overpopulation that were then presented to the United Nations (Chesler, 1992: 456-460). The Population Council published an explicit neo-Malthusian tract, This Crowded World (Osborn, 1960), aimed at the general audience. Both planned parenthood advocates and population specialists pressed for the US to adopt an international population control policy, and there was growing optimism that this would soon occur. In 1963, Sanger, in one of her last public statements on population, expressed her deep satisfaction (Chesler, 1992: 462 ) at the success of the neo-Malthusian movement:

Fifty years ago I realized what was coming -- the population explosion we hear so much about today, women having more and more babies until there's neither food nor room for them on earth. And I tried to do something about it. Now I have thousands of people all over the world aware of that problem and its only possible solutions -- family limitation and planned parenthood.

The alliance that population specialists and birth controllers forged during the 1950s was real and deep-seated. They shared an ideology and a demographic goal, much as Sanger and the eugenists had earlier. Both wished to bring birth control to the masses of the world's people who had limited access to modern methods of contraception. The birth controller working for Planned Parenthood saw great benefit flowing to the individual, especially the individual woman, from having a smaller family. The population controller was convinced that the resolution of societal and geopolitical crises required the lowering of birth rates. Their shared neo-Malthusian belief in the beneficence of lower fertility united the parties.

Some now contend (Gordon, 1990: 386) that during this period the alliance between feminists and population controllers was lop-sided, that neo-Malthusianism totally overwhelmed the original feminist intent of the birth control movement:

Descended from Malthusianism, population control had distinctly separate roots from the U.S. birth-control movement. Yet Planned Parenthood, the organizational heir to the birth-control movement, married the two, in a union in which the birth-control 'wife' was subordinated to the population control 'husband.'

Margaret Sanger, however, might have disagreed with this assessment. Her espousal of neo-Malthusianism was constant across decades and difficult to doubt. At the time most birth controllers, and most population controllers, were confident that inducing Third World women to practice contraception would simultaneously improve these individuals' social and economic situation as well as alleviate societal problems. The contemporary concern that state population policies might encroach on the reproductive freedom of Third World women was nowhere to be found. It would not be until a revived feminist movement arrived on the scene and questioned neo-Malthusian intentions, that "wife" and "husband" would overtly disagree.⁽²⁰⁾

Population Control and Feminism, 1965-1974: An Alliance is Questioned

As early as the end of the 1950s the perception of the "population problem" had undergone a decided alteration. Emphasis shifted from population size to population growth rates and the list of countries experiencing a problem expanded to include nearly all Third World countries. Researchers (Coale and Hoover, 1958; Enke, 1963) developed models that quantified the economic cost of continued high fertility and found it substantial. Departing from the colorless language of academics, in a 1968 issue of Demography, academics and foundation representatives alike spoke of the efforts to control Third World population growth in the language of a battle, a Holy War (Watkins 1993). Some were so convinced of the seriousness of a population crisis that there were calls to move "beyond family planning" (Davis, 1967) -- for example by instituting a tax on children or by paying individuals to be sterilized.

This generated debate within the population control movement of the potential of such programs for abuse and coercion (Berelson, 1969), and the Population Council hired an ethicist. The more drastic proposals to go "beyond family planning" (i.e. significant disincentives) were rejected within the population establishment, probably because they troubled some of its more influential liberal members but also because such proposals were politically problematic. The immediate task was to convince nervous political leaders, both at home and abroad, of the practicality of population control. Suggestions that it might require more coercive measures would hardly serve that purpose. Thus, the alliance between the population control movement and the international planned parenthood movement continued to be characterized by a voluntaristic and mildly feminist stance. Most population controllers remained confident that when the facts of the case were laid out women would realize that what was good for the development of the nation was also good for them as individuals. The array of available contraceptive techniques was considered a bottleneck, and the Population Council took the lead in developing female contraceptives (the IUD and then Norplant) that, unlike barrier methods and the contraceptive pill, did not require sustained motivation. An additional advantage of the IUD (and, later, injections of Depo-Provera) was that a woman could more easily use them "privately," without the knowledge of her spouse or other family members (Lande, 1995).

The immediate aim of the alliance was now to influence state policy. Neo-Malthusianism had attracted support well beyond private foundations. By 1970 over 88% of Americans believed that the world was experiencing a population problem, and over 70% thought that the United States was also (Westoff and McCarthy, 1979). On two national fertility studies in 1965 and 1970, women who considered US population growth a serious problem had substantially smaller intended family sizes than those who were not concerned, as well as much larger reductions in these intentions between the two surveys (Preston, 1986: 180). Foundations supported the establishment of non-governmental organizations such as the Population Crisis Committee and Zero Population Growth that recruited members, raised funds and lobbied the US government to become involved in molding demographic processes abroad. Senator Gruening held hearings in 1965, and Congressional support grew (Piotrow, 1973). By 1965 President Johnson cautiously brought the US government on board with the establishment of population offices in the Department of State and in USAID. Funding for USAID's population program expanded rapidly and Ray Ravenholt, head of this program, argued (Donaldson, 1990) for a policy to inundate Third World countries with contraceptives.

Following its success at influencing the US government, the alliance's attentions turned to the UN, whose collaboration would give legitimacy to global population control efforts and thus avoid charges of imperialism or genocide in countries newly liberated from colonial control. Third World governments were crucial allies in the population control effort. International non-governmental organizations (e.g. IPPF, Pathfinder) could stimulate and support local efforts to establish a few family planning centers in urban areas, but more ambitious national efforts required integration within a government ministry. As a result of US efforts, the UNFPA was established in 1969, and became a conduit for US funds (Symonds and Carder, 1973; Johnson, 1987: 26-28).

By the end of the period, then, the population control movement had gone well beyond the limited efforts of the previous period. It was successful in influencing public opinion and attracting resources. In addition, it gained allies: corporate sponsors, academics with relevant scientific expertise, the US government with its deep pockets, and, particularly important for a movement with international aims, the United Nations, as well as a substantial number of developing countries. However, the feminist credentials of the alliance between population controllers and planned parenthood advocates come to be challenged.

Second-wave feminism, sparked by the publication of Friedan's Feminine Mystique in 1963 and by the establishment of the National Organization for Women in 1965, shared with its predecessors earlier in the century an ideology aimed at the advancement of women. But there were shifts in feminist ideology and goals that in retrospect can be seen as barriers to an alliance between feminists and population controllers in this period. The revived feminist movement was part of an efflorescence of the "new social movements," such as the civil rights movement and the protests against the war in Vietnam. Conditions (e.g. segregated schools, the draft) that previously had been defined as natural or at best unfortunate were re-defined as injustices, and some took to the streets to make their voices heard, marching on Washington, burning draft cards and (perhaps apocryphally) burning bras (Piven and Cloward, 1977). The political mobilization tactics of the new protest movements were much in contrast to the orderly hierarchies of the population establishment.

The revived feminist movement was not a single movement, and it demonstrated considerably more diversity during this period than the population control movement. Liberal and radical members had distinct agendas, assessed the extent of women's subjugation differently, and sought different remedies to end it.⁽²¹⁾ Reproductive control fit well with the agendas of liberal feminists. Primarily concerned with domestic issues, their goal was to achieve equality for women in the work place. To compete with men, women had to be able to coordinate family formation decisions with career needs. Whereas public advocacy for birth control had been judged politically risky by the leaders of the women's suffrage movement, now liberal feminists considered support for birth control to be essential. In 1965, the Supreme Court decision, Griswold vs Connecticut, finally gave married couples a constitutionally protected right to contraception. Eight years later the Supreme Court in Roe vs Wade dramatically expanded birth control rights to include abortion. For liberal feminists, then, the greater accessibility to contraception and abortion achieved in this period was a prerequisite for reaching their primary goals and was largely uncontroversial.

Population control, however, was controversial for the radical feminists, who had different ideologies: feminist critiques of population control in this period were "tributaries of a more general stream of agitation" (Snow and Benbow, 1992), ones that explicitly challenged the power and control of the white male establishment. US involvement in the Vietnam conflict renewed the political left. Alliances developed among these movements based on overlapping memberships and a common belief in the possibility of major social change. The population control movement was not part of this left-leaning coalition of social movements largely because of the close establishment ties it forged during the 1960s.⁽²²⁾ The population control movement's interest in lowering the fertility of the world's poor women of color raised questions: black organizations viewed population control with suspicion, the more radical of them labeling it genocide (Bambara, 1970; Weisbord, 1975), and the antiwar left saw it as a part of an imperialist strategy for Third World pacification.

The neo-Malthusians' Third World fertility control programs attracted concerted opposition from leftist feminists. Early in the 1970s Linda Gordon disparaged (1974: 81-91) the post-WWII neo-Malthusian movement by tracing its roots to American eugenists who, she argued, in the 1940s reframed their old beliefs into new, more palatable population control arguments. She portrayed post-war neo-Malthusians simply as eugenists who broadened their horizons beyond national boundaries and softened their rhetoric. Their goal was still to preserve (Gordon, 1974: 86) "the hegemony of the most able of the old yankees," but now by limiting the numbers and influence of the world's non-white populations. Bonnie Mass analyzed (1972: 48-49; 1974; 1976) the "political economy of population control" and concluded that it was part of a strategy to preserve Western hegemony by controlling the wombs of Third World women.

These leftist feminists were not opposed to the idea of population control, but only to the reactionary purposes to which it was put. Much as Charlotte Gilman and Emma Goldman had done earlier, Gordon, for example, argued that reproduction can be controlled by the group for the good of the group (1974: 87):

Our evaluation of a social planning that includes the birth rate should be based not on a commitment to an abstract individualism but on who does the social planning for what ends. Over-population in some areas of the world is a serious problem, although it is not the cause of poverty. Population control may be a reasonable part of any overall plan for economic development if it is democratically decided upon and administered.

Mass (1976: 187) depicted socialist "birth planning" as a "scientific method" of determining the size of families: "How many children a woman has is based upon her own daily circumstances, her health, her ambitions and talents, the family's situation and society's needs." The practices of Cuba, China, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union were held up as positive models of such planning because of their emphasis on collective decision making rather than the individual rights (p. 200) of the liberal feminists:

The social planning of health care, demographic policies and birth control become an integral part of broad economic and social decisions made by the masses through collectives, communes, factories and revolutionary councils. The planning of children placed within a context of economic well-being and through a class identity becomes a rational choice.

The attacks by radical feminists relied heavily on a general Marxist critique of population control, and appear to have provoked little response from members of the population control movement. For example, there is no reference to these concerns in Donaldson's (1990) comprehensive history of the population control movement.⁽²³⁾ Why were feminist criticisms ignored? We suspect that the diversity within the feminist movement made it possible for population controllers to listen selectively to feminist voices. Population controllers could note that US feminists of all persuasions did support access to reproductive control as a human right, as established in Griswold vs Connecticut and Roe vs Wade, and proposals for programs that went "beyond family planning" had been rejected within the population control establishment itself. The language of the liberal feminists relating reproductive control to enhanced women's status in the US added another rationale for population policies and programs, one that was easily translated into Third World terms, especially in the context of a growing U.N. interest in "Women in Development" programs (Kardam, 1991). Radical feminists could be dismissed: they spoke as outsiders, with little scientific legitimacy, and they attacked the collaboration of US foundations and a repressive US government with anti-capitalist rhetoric, thereby limiting their political support. More generally, perhaps, feminists were not yet considered to have the moral authority to speak for women as a group. This was to change.

Population Control and Feminism, 1974-1985: A Growing Divide

Not only radical feminists but also Third World leaders questioned the motives behind First World interest in controlling their women's fertility. The World Population Conference at Bucharest in 1974 was planned by the leaders of the neo-Malthusian movement to be the international conference where consensus would form around their agenda (Finkle and Crane, 1975: 87-88). However, Third World leaders contended that "development is the best contraceptive," and that increasing First World economic development aid would be a more welcome population control strategy than simply supporting fertility control programs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd used the occasion to publically convert (Rockefeller, 1974) to this "developmentalist" position, and soon thereafter the Population Council (Population Council, 1978) also declared support for integrating all fertility control programs into comprehensive development programs. This was the first of a number of challenges that neo-Malthusians were to face during this decade.

Adoption of a developmentalist position was a setback for the neo-Malthusian movement. Calling for development and fertility control to proceed together signified that international policy makers considered the population problem to be significantly less virulent than did the neo-Malthusians. Fertility control was not considered a prerequisite for development, but a concomitant policy intervention that simply would expedite the development process. This constituted a significant demotion for fertility control on the international agenda of needed policy interventions. In fact, it gave succor to those who held that fertility decline was a consequence of the development process and not a catalyst, and that the only way to insure its occurrence was by the indirect route of promoting development. Such a vision of fertility decline as a necessary consequence, not cause, of larger societal changes was to provide the frame that feminists would modify for later use at Cairo: fertility decline as a necessary consequence of the empowerment of women. Although nothing approaching this formulation of the relationship can be found in the Bucharest document, it did call for the equal participation of women in the economic, social and political life of their countries, and specifically sought to increase the education of women.

Another move at Bucharest was to have perhaps even more significant implications for relations between population controllers and feminists. At Bucharest the international body eventually supported family planning, but the rationale was that of human rights rather than population control: "All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children." Adopting individual rights rhetoric nicely deflected criticism of possible neo-colonial motives for First World support of Third World population control, and few population controllers objected to it. Although feminists were sparsely represented at this 1974 meeting, the position adopted by the international community was consistent with the reproductive agenda of American liberal feminists.⁽²⁴⁾ It also became the cornerstone of future feminist attempts to influence international population policy.

If recognized as inherent, a right no longer needs to be legitimized by reference to its social utility. Many population controllers at Bucharest promoted an individual's right to reproductive autonomy as a pragmatic way of furthering fertility control. Their advocacy, however, necessarily diminished the legitimacy of shaping reproductive behavior to further societal interests. If this individual right were recognized as absolute, all such attempts would become positively unethical. Although the language adopted at Bucharest melded freedom with responsibility when endowing individuals with the right to determine family size, the legitimacy of fertility reduction campaigns had begun to be questioned, and population controllers had participated in that process.

Although the international community at Bucharest affirmed the right of individuals to reproductive autonomy, during the next decade several countries, most notably India and China, initiated coercive fertility control campaigns. Forced vasectomies in India and one-child campaigns that pressured pregnant women to undergo late-term abortions in China were state responses to a perceived population crisis, and these actions dismayed many. Neo-Malthusians had worked hard to generate an aura of crisis around population growth, and they became associated with these coercive state actions. Although Congress did increase US government funding for international population programs, the media attention given coercive fertility control efforts, especially those employing abortion, made American politicians hesitant about offering unqualified support for population control. The movement's major private sources of funds, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, both significantly reduced their allocations for population control work during this decade, which made the movement more dependent on public funds (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1986).

Finally, neo-Malthusianism suffered an ideological setback during this decade: a skepticism about the gravity of the population crisis grew among both experts and the public. The Green Revolution had lessened fears of famine, and developing countries' trends in population growth and in per capita economic growth had yet to show an inverse relationship. Some began to contend (Simon, 1977) that population growth was a stimulant to economic growth. In addition, and not necessarily closely associated with family planning policies and programs, declines in birth rates also finally spread to a significant number of developing countries.⁽²⁵⁾ Public alarm over the possibility of a "population bomb" steadily diminished after the late 1960s (Wilmoth and Ball, 1992: 635), and mass movement neo-Malthusian organizations such as ZPG suffered significant membership declines. The one bright spot for neo-Malthusianism was in the international arena: the number of developing countries adopting (Barrett, 1995) official anti-natalist positions and implementing fertility control campaigns increased substantially.⁽²⁶⁾

The decade following Roe vs Wade was challenging for feminists as well as for population controllers, with consequences for the strategies adopted by feminists on the road to Cairo. A strong "right-to-life" movement emerged that gained political sophistication and strength. Although not successful in its bid to outlaw abortion constitutionally, it successfully lobbied Congress in 1976 to pass the Hyde Amendment that banned the federal funding of abortions. The National Organization for Women and the National Abortion Rights Action League coordinated (Staggenborg, 1991: 70) a unified pro-choice lobbying voice by opening an "information exchange" with Planned Parenthood and Zero Population Growth. Abortion became perhaps the single most important symbol for American feminists, including those in the international population control movement. With the fading prospects of a sufficient numbers of states passing the Equal Rights Amendment, defending a woman's right to abortion became the goal that unified American feminists. For the first time American feminism had a core agenda that focused on a reproductive issue. Pursuit of that agenda in the international arena made extended engagement with population controllers inevitable.

The term "reproductive rights" that was so prominent in the rhetoric of Cairo enters the feminist lexicon during this decade. Originally it was a counterpoint offered by more leftist feminists to "abortion rights," one aimed at questioning how narrowly defined the feminist reproductive agenda should be. Leftist feminists asserted that women have more than just a right to legally obtain an abortion, they have full "reproductive rights" that include, in cases of need, a right to government-subsidized abortion, contraception, pre-natal care, and early childhood health care. All women, including poor women, have the right to have as many children as they wish and to have their own and their children's health needs ensured. "Right" was used in the socialist tradition, meaning an individual's just claim to something, be it food, shelter, health care, or abortion. Early on socialist-feminists interpreted (Clark and Wolfson, 1984: 113) the challenge posed by the right-to-life movement as part of a broader attempt by the Right to "push back the democratic gains made by the civil rights, women's, and gay movements since the 1960s." Their tactic was to counter this thrust with an "offensive movement" that would seek (Staggenborg, 1991: 111) "the conditions for 'free choice,' including child care, national health care, high quality education, and a guaranteed income."

Liberal feminists used the term "abortion rights" from within the liberal tradition, meaning by "right" an individual's freedom to act without government restriction. They had a more focused agenda than their socialist sisters, and sought a broad array of allies to help safeguard the legality of abortion. For instance, lobbyists for NOW and ZPG worked together to deter Congress from passing an anti-abortion Constitutional amendment in 1973, and ZPG members were among the earliest board members of NARAL (Staggenborg, 1991: 62, 191-192); among ZPG arguments was that public funding for abortion was critical for population control agendas. By contrast, the National Women's Health Network (NWHN), established in 1975 and one of the earliest reproductive rights organizations, officially opposed "the use of arguments and policies on the abortion issue which stem from an analysis which suggests that population control is an element in the movement for reproductive rights" (Staggenborg, 1991: 113-114). The NWHN also denounced those who sought support for public funding of abortions by arguing that it would limit welfare expenditures. The continued strength of the "right-to-life" movement, and its success at restricting women's access to abortion, has worked to keep in place the liberal feminist agenda of simply protecting abortion rights. However, the more expansive term "reproductive rights," divested of many of its original socialist connotations, has gained favor among a wide-spectrum of American feminists.⁽²⁷⁾

Actions by the more activist women's groups to protect women's reproductive health did gain widespread support among all feminists. The major concern of the NWHN, for example, was placing women's interests at the center of women's health care (Higer, 1996). Physicians, medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and population controllers often had made decisions about women's health issues that NWHN members believed were not in the best interest of women. In 1977 the NWHN worked (Gordon, 1990: 422) to get more extensive warnings labels put on prescriptions of birth control pills, an action fought by both pharmaceutical companies and population controllers. Feminists won and pill use declined substantially.⁽²⁸⁾ Feminist groups successfully fought to block FDA approval of Depo-Provera in 1978 and 1984, against opposition by Upjohn, USAID and the IPPF. After the Dalkon Shield IUD had been removed from the US market because of the high rates of infection and sterility it caused, feminists exposed (Ehrenreich, Dowie and Minkin, 1979) the fact that Ravenholt and USAID were dumping their supplies of the Shield in Third World countries. Some feminists argued for a return to barrier methods, or even to abstinence or withdrawal (Bram, 1978; Greer, 1985). Population specialists tried to normalize the risks associated with modern contraceptives with calculations that showed they were less than the risks associated with repeated childbearing, but the women's health movement made feminists very sensitive to issues of power and manipulation.⁽²⁹⁾ The research efforts of pharmaceutical companies and population controllers might produce more "effective" contraceptives, but such improved efficiency often simply made it easier for these organizations to attain their goals without enhancing the reproductive rights of women.

The growing divide between the feminist reproductive agenda and that of neo-Malthusians lessened the significance of what should have been a unifying event. The election of the economically and socially conservative Ronald Reagan in 1980, and subsequently George Bush, provided them with a common enemy. Reagan's right-to-life positions were clear from the beginning of his presidency, and his election posed a serious threat to the feminist pro-choice agenda. His anti-Malthusianism surfaced late in 1983 when designating the delegation that would represent the US at the 1984 World Population Conference in Mexico City. Any acknowledgment by the US at that conference of a serious "population problem" very likely would be interpreted by social conservatives as an apology for abortion and state-mandated contraception, a position with which Reagan did not wish to be associated during an election year (Finkle and Crane, 1985: 16-20). At Mexico City the US delegation asserted that "population is a neutral phenomenon" in the development process, and that excessive state control of the economy was more responsible for economic stagnation than rapid population growth. Adopting this anti-Malthusian position undercut the rationale for all coercive fertility control programs, and allowed the Reagan administration to oppose them and abortion. Although inspired by domestic political considerations, this position did have real consequences for international population control efforts. After the Mexico City conference the US stopped funding the foreign family planning activities of any organization that also provided abortion.

The position adopted by the Reagan administration should have worked to invoke a strong alliance between neo-Malthusians and feminists. The Reagan amalgam of social and economic conservatism managed simultaneously to reject the legitimacy of a woman's right to abortion, the central goal of second-wave feminism, and population control, the objective of neo-Malthusianism. The administration adopted policies that intentionally held hostage millions of women's access to contraception in order to reduce abortion. Although pushed together by these actions, no alliance between feminists and neo-Malthusians was consummated. Reagan's amalgam of conservative positions actually exposed the different reproductive objectives of the two movements.

For instance, in response to the administration's positions USAID not only isolated its family planning programs from all connection with abortion services, it also elaborated non-population control rationales for them (McPherson, 1985), designating them as components of maternal and child health programs.⁽³⁰⁾ Reproductive rights feminists objected strenuously to USAID's abortion position, but viewed (Dixon-Mueller, 1987: 163-167) with some approval its display of anti-Malthusianism: "the Reagan Administration identified economic underdevelopment as the real problem, and excessive population growth as merely a symptom." Many feminists actively endorsed (Dixon-Mueller, 1987: 167) the recasting of family planning as a health program: "Indeed, the emphasis within AID on the right of couples and families to control their own fertility, and on maternal and child health as the major justifications for international family planning assistance, provides a promising policy basis for stressing clients' needs, informed choice, and quality of care." Population control programs engaging in practices such as enticing tubal ligation candidates with incentives faced concerted attack by feminists (Hartmann and Standing, 1985), and problems of rapid population growth were not seen as warranting any infringement on the reproductive autonomy of women. Few feminists objected to the waning of administrative support for population control.

Likewise, feminists could not rely on much neo-Malthusian support in their struggle for abortion rights. Abortion, a woman's ultimate means of controlling her reproductive destiny, was preeminently a feminist issue. At the population level, abortion is an expensive and not especially efficient means of limiting births. Population controllers, worried about costs and benefits, were never enamored with abortion as a means of birth control. Sterilization, with its permanence and limited need for motivation, held more appeal along with the IUD and long-lasting hormonal methods such as Depo-Provera and Norplant. Of course, the attributes that attracted population controllers to these methods made feminists suspicious of them, especially sterilization (Shapiro, 1985). Moreover, population controllers were less able to offer real help to feminists in the domestic political arena during the 1980s since mass neo-Malthusian movements such as ZPG had faded considerably in strength and no longer were a major source of pro-choice votes.

The sharing of a common enemy, therefore, did not provide a sufficient foundation on which to build an alliance between feminists and population controllers. However, the actions of the Reagan administration did encourage greater contact between feminists and population controllers, and did give birth to some organizations that bridged the two movements. In 1980 the Population Crisis Committee gave a grant to the National Women's Health Coalition, which was reconstituted as the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC), to promote menstrual regulation and early-term abortion in developing countries. The IWHC, fathered with population control money, became the major source of support and training for Third World providers of abortion. Soon it was to expand its agenda and attempt to construct a firmer foundation for an alliance between feminists and population controllers.

Population Control and Feminism, 1985-1995: An Alliance is Assembled

The story of the population control movement in this period is largely a continuation of the trends since Bucharest: growing international strength, but domestic weakening. By 1991, sixty-nine countries had officially endorsed comprehensive population policies (Barrett, 1995: 249). Family planning programs continued to receive international funding, but an increasing proportion of funding was provided by Third World governments themselves, indicating a growing neo-Malthusian commitment on their part. Domestically there was a steady erosion of institutional support for neo-Malthusianism. Population controllers were asked for solid evidence that rapid population growth had significant negative effects on development potential. Such evidence had become more ambiguous, and the received wisdom of population controllers faced serious challenge on many fronts, from the opposition of the Religious Right to the scepticism of academics. A report by the National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council, 1986) seriously weakened development rationales for population programs. Cold War fears had generated a good deal of political support for population reduction efforts for forty years, but the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War dissipated this powerful source of neo-Malthusian support.⁽³¹⁾ Additionally, in the post-Cold War context the development argument for population control, at least for Northern policy makers, devolved into a humanitarian argument: population control will enhance the welfare of Southern individuals. Benefits that might accrue to the North from reducing Southern rates of population growth could be suggested: perhaps fertility reduction, by enhancing rates of economic growth in the South, will eventually lessen Southern emigration to the North or enhance South/North trade. These benefits, however, lacked immediacy and credibility. Altruism promised to provide a much shakier foundation for neo-Malthusianism support than fear of communism. The withdrawal of US executive branch backing for neo-Malthusianism elicited no revival of foundation support and many old-line population officers in foundations were replaced by ones more attuned to feminist concerns.⁽³²⁾

The extent and pace of fertility decline had increased (Bongaarts and Watkins, 1996). Although these fertility declines could be interpreted as evidence of the past success of fertility control programs, they also worked to lessen the salience of population control on the international agenda. Demographic stories told in terms of age composition and population momentum are technical, and much less capable of capturing the public imagination than the projections of rapid population growth, with curves soaring upward, had in the past. Many population controllers believed (Westoff, 1994: 30, 32) that simply "satisfying existing demand for family planning" would bring further substantial declines, and population projections made during this period invariably assumed a continued decline in Southern population growth rates. Population policy became focused on reducing the ultimate size of the world's population by hastening the pace of fertility decline. Social problems compete for attention (Hilgartner and Bosk, 1988), and in this competition for salience global environmental issues gained and population control issues lost.

Population controllers reacted to declining interest by reshaping their agenda and casting around for possible allies. The environmental movement seemed an obvious source of support, given that one strand of explanation for environmental problems emphasized population growth (Crane, 1993: 367-369): "Reducing population growth was readily incorporated into the concept of 'sustainable development,' which became the common aspiration of the environmental and development communities during the 1980s ..." The flirtation did not proceed to a more serious relationship, however, due to objections from feminists.

Women meeting in Rio de Janeiro in preparation for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development objected vigorously and successfully (Cohen, 1993) to including population as a cause of environmental degradation. Two days of discussions on population where held at the Women's Tent outside the UNCED meetings, and population control was roundly attacked. The Rio Declaration on environment and development contained only oblique mention of population control.⁽³³⁾ Even so, some thought that population controllers using aggregate environmental arguments and feminists using human rights claims would openly confront each other at the Preparatory Committee meetings preceding Cairo. Margaret Hempel of the Ford Foundation noted (1994), "I thought that the environmental groups were going to be the big 'bully on the block.'" Yet she found that "in the end, they have been the least of the problem." Susan Davis of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) observed (1994) that at third Preparatory Committee Meeting for Cairo (PrepCom III) "the environmental constituency worked closely with the women's caucus; they coordinated their inputs." Apparently environmentalists, concerned with furthering their own agenda, did not wish to alienate feminists; indeed, some of them were feminists themselves⁽³⁴⁾. Nor did they wish to weaken ties with friends in the South who objected to blaming environmental degradation on the prolificness of the poor rather than on the over-consumption of the rich.

The new alliance that came to sustain the population control movement was with feminists, and was largely assembled by feminists. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a network of feminists committed to improving women's reproductive health in the international arena "played an increasingly influential role both in shaping the terms of the policy debate and re-orienting the population agendas of major international institutions" (Higer, 1996: 1).⁽³⁵⁾ They drew on the values expressed in the reproductive rights agenda that had been articulated in the abortion debates, particularly its human rights rationale. Unlike either the suffragists of the early nineteenth century or USAID in the Reagan-Bush years, both of whom emphasized women as mothers, the reproductive health feminists envisioned women as women, a more expansive identity. They also drew on a wider feminist network, in part a consequence of more women attaining positions in foundations, non-governmental organizations, and national and international agencies.⁽³⁶⁾ An inclusive ideology that valued wide participation and consensus-building produced an international network that included significant Southern representation. Assessing the influence of Southern feminists would take us beyond the scope of this paper, but an in-depth analysis of the interaction Northern and Southern feminists is much needed.⁽³⁷⁾

The IWHC took the lead in formulating a feminist position that made the alliance at Cairo possible, although their ideological frames, tactics and influence owe much to previous developments in feminism as a social movement. In 1984 Joan Dunlop became president and Adrienne Germain vice-president of the IWHC.⁽³⁸⁾ Shortly thereafter the agenda of the IWHC expanded to include areas of women's reproductive health other than menstrual regulation and abortion, the initial focus of IWHC, and their funding sources shifted from the Population Crisis Committee to the Hewlett, Mellon and Ford foundations, and later to the MacArthur and Rockefeller foundations.⁽³⁹⁾ Much as the population control movement had done earlier, the IWHC aimed to change state policy, particularly that of USAID, the Department of State, and the United Nations. Dunlop thought (Hartmann, 1987: 295) conditions were opportune for moving population policy in more feminist directions:

The threat of AIDS, which is renewing interest in barrier methods, and the right-wing attack on family planning, which is encouraging liberal elements in the population establishment to seek allies among the feminist community, make this an historic opening for those of us who want to make reproductive rights the new cornerstone of population policy.

USAID's recasting of family planning activities into maternal and child health activities suggested that the agency's program might be further transformed into a women's reproductive health program. This "reproductive health approach" was elaborated by Germain in a 1987 paper, "Reproductive health and dignity: Choices by Third World women." Looking back on this paper from the perspective of May, 1994, Germain (1994) said,

The vision...now is a more encompassing vision. Back in '87 about the only thing we could really do would be to suggest that the different pieces -- MCH [maternal and child health], child survival, family planning -- become more integrated. Seven years later we can write a vision which is much more encompassing and is actually well-reflected in the ICPD document.

Germain's 1987 paper listed constituencies that might be approached for alliances, including "population professionals who want both to increase the number of contraceptive users and to support their continuing use for substantial enough periods to have both demographic and health effects." Also included were child survival and primary health care professionals, women's health advocates, feminists "concerned with 'women in development'," and general proponents of "social justice and human rights who recognize that women cannot exercise their basic rights fully unless they have effective access to comprehensive reproductive health care." To woo these constituencies, the IWHC leaders had two tasks. First, they had to develop a feminist population policy that would satisfy a wide variety of feminists. Second, they had to mobilize support for this policy from the population control establishment.

Between 1987 and 1994 the IWHC articulated an "ideological package" that melded their own commitment to safeguarding and improving women's reproductive health and specific issues raised by a diversity of feminists over the past 20 years. An early step was to reframe the concept of "unmet need." Demographers measure unmet need as the proportion of married women who say they want to stop childbearing or delay the birth of the next child but who are not currently using contraception (Westoff, 1988; Bongaarts, 1990, 1991). A significant proportion provides justification for further family planning efforts (Sinding, 1993). In Germain's 1987 paper unmet need was somewhat expanded to include women currently excluded from services.⁽⁴⁰⁾ By 1994, however, feminists engaged in the effort to influence the Cairo Programme of Action (Abzug, 1994) were using the term in a far more expansive fashion, one evocative of Emma Goldman, the early Margaret Sanger, and leftist-feminists calling for positive rights in the 1970s:

So, what should we emphasize in Cairo? First, we must collectively address the challenge of how to meet the real unmet demand and need of billions of people for simple human dignity and basic human rights. How do we meet the unmet demand and need by the female half of our population for power over their lives, for control over their bodies, for physical and emotional security, for education and economic independence that enables the realization of one's human potential? And how do we meet the unmet consumption demand and need for food, for shelter, for education, for jobs, for health care.

In March of 1993 the IWHC, acting an international secretariat, began circulating for signatures a policy statement, "Women's Voices '94" (IWHC, 1993), aimed at insuring that women would be "heard" during the preparations for Cairo. "Women's Voices '94" illustrates how the ideological package of the international reproductive rights feminists was reframed after 1987. It includes the aims set out by Germain in the 1987 paper to improve and expand delivery of family planning services, but adds opposition to any form of coercion (such as the offering of incentives), advocates women organizing and running all programs offering health services for women, and calls for "equal rights legislation" to insure women better access to education, employment and credit. Both liberal feminist concerns with gender equality and radical feminist concerns with the abolishment of patriarchy are addressed, suggesting a variety of influences from second-wave feminism.⁽⁴¹⁾ Over 2200 individuals eventually sign the statement, although some notable population-oriented representatives declined the invitation: The Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Population Action International (PAI), and Steven Sinding, Director for Population Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation.

The expansion of the feminist population agenda facilitated alliances with a wider range of feminists than had been possible before. The more visible of these allies during the preparations for Cairo was the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), a New York-based group led by former congresswoman Bella Abzug. Among the resources offered by WEDO was the mobilization of support by Southern women. In November of 1991 WEDO organized a "World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet" in Miami at which 1,500 women from 83 countries attended, a mobilization that enhanced WEDO's presence at the Rio UNCED conference during June of 1992. Whereas IWHC's tactics were to work in the corridors of power, WEDO's tactics are more reminiscent of the grassroots collective action developed by the new social movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. Susan Davis, executive director of WEDO, described (1994) what has become the WEDO technique for representing women's interests at UN conferences:

It is a methodology to organize lots of people's energies for a "common ground" advocacy and to influence the process. It requires an understanding of the UN process and where the points of leverage are... Women a decade ago wouldn't have understood that. It wasn't widely understood. It is now. And there wasn't a concerted effort to harness lots of voices.

Harnessing "lots of voices" was a implicit challenge to the white male population control establishment continuing to decide what was best for Third World women of color. The tactic, however, posed problems for IWHC leaders who wanted to work with that establishment to plan for Cairo. Many of the Southern women at the UNCED meetings were actively hostile to all talk of population problems, and had displayed a willingness to openly confront those who thought otherwise.⁽⁴²⁾ A repeat of the UNCED Women's Tent episode at Cairo was not what moderate reproductive health activists wanted. The Ford Foundation gave funds to the IWHC to bring together in January of 1994 over 200 women activists, many with radical leanings, to see if a unified Cairo strategy could be forged. Five days of meetings in Rio produced a "Rio Statement" on reproductive health and justice (IWHC, 1994) that was notably more anti-population control than the original "Women's Voices '94" statement, even observing that "a significant number of the participants opposed population policies as being inherently coercive."⁽⁴³⁾ It declared "unanimous opposition to designing fertility control measures or population policies specifically targeted at Southern countries," and explicitly questioned the safety of non-barrier methods of contraception. But, in the end, the participants did agree that women should come to PrepCom III and Cairo with a united voice and work to effect change within the limits of conference procedures.

An overt dismissal of the population problem could not be incorporated into a "common-ground" position that was to serve as a basis for an alliance between feminists and population controllers, nor could a policy that explicitly attempted to lower the fertility of individual women. A policy with which both feminists and the population control establishment could live needed to be devised as Cairo approached. Steven Sinding, of the Rockefeller Foundation, suggested (1993) abolishing all demographic targets and having programs that solely attempted to "meet the unmet need" of women for family planning. His analysis of survey data indicated that every nation's fertility targets would be reached if its women attained their own fertility goals. Earlier Marge Berer had called on (1991: 3) women's health activists to "acknowledge that the world cannot sustain an unlimited number of people," and then become the major force in formulating population policies: "I would argue that women have a right to judge population policies as being acceptable or not, according to whether or not they meet women's needs and promote women's interests." An ad placed by the IWHC in the New York Times (May 10, 1993) made the connection between women as population actors and population policy makers: "Who is better qualified to come up with solutions than the women at the heart of the matter? No one." Such claims would have had little impact before second-wave feminism but after three decades of feminist consciousness-raising in US society, they had achieved a moral legitimacy that was difficult to dismiss.

Ruth Dixon-Mueller (1993) and others (Sen, Germain and Chen, 1994) constructed an elaborate and finely aligned "feminist population policy" within which feminist objectives were congruent with the interests of the population control movement. There were three crucial aspects of Dixon-Mueller's formulation. First, "population stabilization" was presented as a desirable ultimate goal, although not one warranting the use of compulsion. Second, national programs enhancing access to contraception were justified in terms of individual human rights, not in terms of their development advantages for aggregate populations. This shift, signaled earlier at Bucharest, allowed feminists to draw on the powerful symbolic human rights language embedded in U.N. rhetoric for decades to argue for the recognition of reproductive rights. Third, in an argument reminiscent of the one made at Bucharest that "development is the best contraceptive," the empowerment of women was presented as a prerequisite for the enduring low fertility that population stabilization requires. In this ideological package feminists reject both the legitimacy and effectiveness of current efforts to induce women to have fewer children, arguing that only by redressing gender inequity and scrupulously respecting each woman's reproductive rights can lasting low fertility be achieved. Programmatically, this meant that family planning services be provided within the context of comprehensive reproductive health programs that had enhancing health, not lowering fertility, as their fundamental objective. Only within such programs could contraception be provided to women without the appearance of manipulation.

This "common ground" population position was framed to accommodate many parties, including representatives of organizations that had strongly supported population control initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s. It worked. Joseph Speidel, president of Population Action International, observed (Greene, 1994: 7): "there is growing recognition that there's a tremendous amount of common ground among what's been loosely called the health advocates, coming from a more feminist perspective, and traditional family planners, who come from more of a demography, environment, and development perspective."⁽⁴⁴⁾ Steven Sinding testified (August 4, 1994) before Congress that along with the provision of reproductive health services, "investments in the empowerment of women, particularly through education" are needed to bring about fertility decline. Lewis Preston, president of the World Bank, issued (Sept. 6, 1994) a three part "Call to Action" that entailed improving women's access to health care and education as well as family planning services. Even non-governmental organizations focused on population control, such as Zero Population Growth and The Population Institute incorporated much of it in their public positions. Davis of WEDO noted (1994) that by PrepCom III ZPG was actually "coordinated their inputs with us."

An alliance with feminists had aspects that appealed to population controllers. It came with a preexisting constituency, one that had been among the most vocal critics of the movement. Also, within this new framework justification for population control no longer rested on the changing theories and inconstant analyses of economists and ecologists. In fact, the familiar correlations of women's education with lower fertility were the only expert "data" needed to document the claim that women's empowerment would lead to population stabilization. In the climate of the 1990s ensuring women's reproductive health rights did not need even this empirical "proof" of its population control efficacy, much as an earlier generation of Neo-Malthusians had not initially needed demonstration of the link between development and population growth. If improving women's access to education or to reproductive health services did not result in dramatic fertility reductions, these endeavors would be seen as intrinsically valuable. For feminists, at any rate, the salience of gender equity was viscerally felt.

The story of the population control movement's shifting alliances played themselves out in a condensed version after the election of President Clinton in 1992. Upon assuming office he immediately rescinded Reagan's "Mexico City" position. He restored financing to the IPPF and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, adopted an unequivocal pro-choice position, and rejected the idea that population growth was "a neutral phenomenon" in the development process. He appointed Timothy E. Wirth Counselor at the State Department and the Administration's main spokesman on population policy, and put him in charge of preparing for the Cairo conference. A former Senator from Colorado, Wirth had a reputation as an environmentalist who would strongly advocate population control as a means of restoring ecological balance. He soon discovered, however, that in the 1990s one had to be very careful when mixing neo-Malthusianism, environmentalism and feminism.

The reproductive health feminists initially found (Germain, 1994) Wirth "to be coming to this issue from an environmental concern" and spent the next year educating him about a expansive view of population issues that recognized the importance of delivering family planning services within a broader context of reproductive health and that emphasized the major role played by the empowerment of women in fertility decline. Wirth eventually converted. He asserted (ICPD 94 Newsletter, 1994) at a March 1994 UN meeting that "sustainable development cannot be realized without the full engagement and complete empowerment of women," and noted that "women's empowerment, rights and well-being" were "top priorities for the Clinton administration." He ratified essentially feminist goals for the Cairo conference: "meeting the unmet demand for and expanding the range of reproductive health services"; "investing in the wisdom of women"; respecting "the basic human rights of women"; ensuring that "women have necessary economic rights"; adapting population programs "to address the unique problems faced by adolescent girls"; and involving women "in the design and implementation of sustainable development strategies and programmes."

Matchmaking by a group of American reproductive-health feminists did unite a large bloc of feminists and much of the population establishment behind the carefully constructed "common ground" agenda.⁽⁴⁵⁾ The Programme of Action adopted at Cairo was the prenuptial contract outlining the terms of a new alliance: redressing gender inequities is needed for lasting fertility control, and women have reproductive rights to freely determine their reproductive destinies. Both government and foundation components of the US population control establishment signed on, as did some UN members whose feminist credentials might be considered dubious. Although we had expected Cairo would be a battleground where feminists and population controllers would fight over framing the world's population agenda for the coming decades, only soothing words of agreement passed between the two new allies who found themselves comrades in arms in a fierce battle with a Vatican intent upon cleansing the Programme of Action of any endorsement of abortion. The press highlighted every skirmish in this battle, but hardly noticed the lack of conflict that surrounded the retraction of population concerns from that document. Although some conservative groups, such as the American Heritage Foundation, had come prepared to debate the existence of a "population problem," they found virtually no one with whom to argue. The absence of population control rhetoric in the Programme of Action, in formal statements, or even in hall discussions made Cairo seem more a conference on feminism than one on population control.⁽⁴⁶⁾

Population Control and Feminism After Cairo: A Lasting Alliance?

Historically, alliances between American population controllers and feminists have lasted when both social movements shared a common goal, perceived mutual benefit in the alliance, and agreed on certain ideological premises. The alliances entered into by Margaret Sanger's birth controllers and eugenists during 1920s and by neo-Malthusians and planned parenthood advocates after WWII each possessed these characteristics, and each lasted well over a decade. One way to assess the durability of the current alliance, then, is to examine the extent to which the two parties share goals, perceive mutual benefit in the alliance, and agree on ideological premises.

Common Goals?

What common goals do contemporary neo-Malthusians and feminists share? Each movement seems to possess a distinct demographic goal. Neo-Malthusians wish to lower fertility and thereby reduce population growth. Feminists wish to enhance the control each woman has over her reproduction. For several decades feminists have contended that population control programs, with their focus on lowering fertility, necessarily infringe on women's reproductive freedom. The Cairo alliance rests on a clever "common ground" agenda that permits each movement to achieve its primary goal; in a sense, this agenda has fabricated a set of common goals. Both parties commit themselves to a gender equity strategy for attaining population stabilization, and to respect the right of each woman to freely determine her fertility. Only within this artfully crafted agenda are the goals of the two movements compatible. The durability of the alliance, then, depends on the ability of population controllers and feminists to confine their activities to the "common ground" agenda. If either party comes to feel unduly constrained by this agenda, the alliance is likely flounder.

On its face, the first provision of the "common ground" agenda -- dedication to a gender equity strategy for attaining population stabilization -- presents the population controller with a significant problem. Neo-Malthusianism is founded on the belief that control of fertility is needed if prosperity is to be achieved. Can its adherents agree that redressing gender inequities will be the principal means of inducing fertility decline? Identifying such a difficult-to-accomplish "means" as being the principal way of attaining the movement's desired end is a problematic tactic. If restructuring gender roles is slow to happen, population controllers will be tempted to seek alternative means of inducing fertility decline. If fertility decline occurs unaccompanied by significant changes in gender relations, population controllers will be tempted to stop working to end gender inequities. Either action is likely to rupture the alliance with feminists.

Population controllers face ideological problems if they abide with the "common ground" position's second provision, recognizing an inviolate right of each woman to freely determine her fertility. A genuine adoption of a reproductive rights framework entails forgetting decades of neo-Malthusian ideology. If an individual woman has (Boland, Rao, and Zeidenstein, 1994: 100) "an absolute right to bodily integrity and to decide herself on matters of sexuality and childbearing with no interference from her partner, family, health care professionals, religious groups, the state, or any other actor," then any attempt to persuade her, with words or incentives, of the benefits of a small family would be inappropriate. If reproductive rights further entails (Boland, Rao, and Zeidenstein, 1994: 100) the individual having "rights to adequate primary health care, housing, social security, education, and nutrition," then this framework assumes a profoundly anti-Malthusian dimension. A woman desiring motherhood would no longer be constrained by her marital or social status, her economic condition, or even her ability to provide for a child. Such a nexus of individual rights harbors no room for neo-Malthusian action and little room for neo-Malthusian sentiment.⁽⁴⁷⁾

Acceptance of this second provision even might inhibit population controllers from asserting the efficacy of birth control activities at the societal level. Might feminists construe, for example, lobbying for special funds for family planning activities as an infringement of reproductive rights, or a departure from the gender equity route to fertility decline? The left-feminist origins of the reproductive rights movement has an explicit anti-Malthusian legacy: a tradition of "proving" one's faithfulness to a reproductive rights agenda by denying the legitimacy of all population control efforts. It is hardly accidental that the term "population problem" never occurs in the 100+ pages of a Programme of Action that devotes an entire chapter to "reproductive rights." If their alliance with feminists keeps neo-Malthusians from publicly proclaiming the efficacy of lowering fertility, they ultimately may be compelled to choose between preserving this alliance or their movement.

Although one might assume that feminists would have fewer problems acting in accordance with the two provisions of the "common ground" agenda, this might not be the case. The first provision asserts that only by redressing gender inequities can a lasting low-fertility society be established. Accepting this provision implies conceding that a low fertility society is desirable, that a population problem currently exists. "Common ground" feminists, then, are placed in the position of acknowledging a demographic explanation of Southern development difficulties. This threatens to distance them from radical feminists who always have offered broad interpretations of North/South, rich/poor, and male/female relationships that identify differential power as the major source of mistreatment and hardship. Overpopulation explanations of poverty can be seen as attributing the plight of poor women to their own actions. Radical feminists are unlikely to stop critiquing such explanations, especially in a post-communist world where equity issues no longer elicit much public support when framed in class terms, but still can be effectively broached when framed in gender terms. It is not clear if "common ground" feminists will be willing to refrain from such critiques.

Additionally, asserting that redressing gender inequities is necessary for a society to attain lasting low fertility implies that low fertility is a sign of gender equity. It implies that women currently living in low-fertility societies are being treated in a somewhat equitable fashion. The domestic concerns of all Northern feminist movements are trivialized. Yet admitting that gender inequity and low fertility can coexist would severely weaken the rationale that feminists gave population controllers for an alliance: that pursuit of feminist goals is a necessary means to attaining neo-Malthusian ends.

Finally, will feminists find the second provision of the "common ground" position, adopting a genuine reproductive rights framework, at all problematic? Feminist dedication to the principles of reproductive rights is essential if the reproductive autonomy of individuals is to be thought of as an inviolate right. If feminists accept as legitimate any infringement on reproductive autonomy, neo-Malthusians can much more easily justify their attempts to influence individual fertility decisions directly.

Situations might arise that will test the depth of feminist dedication to reproductive rights principles. The reproductive rights framework contains elements traceable to its socialist feminist origins: child rearing costs are the ultimate responsibility of society, while the decision to have a child rests exclusively with the woman. In an international arena where an individual's "right" to a host of necessities long has been recognized -- if only on paper and rarely in practice -- this framework proved to be a powerful ideological tool for restraining neo-Malthusian excesses. In a domestic arena where the child rearing costs of dependent people are actually borne by taxpayers, unconditional application of such principles becomes politically more problematic. For instance, the Republican party recently has generated substantial support for discouraging unwed teenage girls from having children by restricting their access to welfare benefits. Domestic feminist organizations have mobilized surprisingly little opposition to this obvious infringement on reproductive autonomy. Does this muted response reflect superficial support for reproductive rights among middle class feminists? With their own family size decisions constrained by economic considerations, do many accept the notion that one should have only the children for whom one can provide? If proposals limiting the access to welfare of unwed teenaged mothers are allowed to become law with minimal protest, neo-Malthusians will be in a position to draw obvious analogies: that efforts to control the fertility of populations receiving significant international aid are justifiable.

All feminists might have difficulty granting the individual absolute reproductive autonomy in certain situations. Should not, for example, the state intervene and attempt to restrict pre-natal sex selection in societies where couples' preference for sons is leading to the aborting of many female fetuses? Yet, such state intervention would necessarily involve a coercive infringement on the individual's reproductive autonomy. The Programme of Action illustrates this feminist dilemma. It clearly prohibits all state coercion of reproductive decision making (7.12): "Any form of coercion has no part to play." Yet in case of couples choosing to abort female fetuses state intervention is recommended (4.23): "Governments are urged to take the necessary measures to prevent... prenatal sex selection..." No reason is given why the individual should not be able to choose the sex of her offspring. The stated objection to current practice is found in the gender imbalance of aborted fetuses, not in the practice itself.⁽⁴⁸⁾ Such apparent approval of reproductive coercion to accomplish the gender-equity goals of feminists makes it less than obvious why reproductive coercion to accomplish the development goals of neo-Malthusians should be considered necessarily unethical.

Feminists developed the reproductive rights framework in a particular time and place to deal with a particular threat. It works to protect poor women from intrusive state attempts to lower their fertility. It might not be flexible enough to cope with changing conditions. For instance, it might offer little protection to women in low-fertility societies from state attempts to increase their fertility. From a reproductive rights perspective, would state payments to mothers for a significant portion of the food, shelter, education, and health care cost of children be an unacceptable "incentive" or an enhancement of their reproductive autonomy? Feminists are likely to face more such conundrums as new reproductive issues arise. Reproductive rights principles as currently defined proscribe all state interventions that encroach on the reproductive autonomy of a woman, muting even feminist calls for legislation to protect female fetuses from sex-selective abortion now or to prevent the sex-selective insemination of ova in the future. As more pronatalist and compositional issues make their way onto the feminist reproductive agenda, pressure to recast the reproductive rights framework will mount.

In contrast to the 1920s when both Margaret Sanger's birth controllers and many eugenists wished to bring birth control to the lower classes, contemporary neo-Malthusians and feminists lack a clear common goal, and their commitment to a fabricated "common ground" agenda cannot simply be assumed. If population stabilization is achieved without gender equity, feminists cannot be counted on to celebrate. If greater gender equity is secured without fertility decline, neo-Malthusians cannot be assured of applauding. Neo-Malthusians did not adopt this agenda because they had lost faith in the population control efficacy of their fertility control programs, nor were they driven to accept it by any accumulation of empirical evidence confirming that gender equity is a prerequisite of low fertility. If Cairo stimulates more research on women's autonomy and fertility change, and if the accumulation of academic studies finds a weak link between the two variables, the population controller's commitment to a "common ground" may weaken. Likewise, feminists, with a quarter-century history of anti-Malthusianism, did not adopt this agenda because they were convinced that population stabilization would enhance the development potential of Southern women, or would resolve ecological problems that women face. Real questions exist, then, both about the extent to which the "common ground" agenda incorporates the true goals of each movement, and about the level of each movement's commitment to that agenda.

Mutual benefit?

Eugenists appreciated a birth control ally who could market contraception to the lower classes as a way to improved health and well-being, and birth controllers appreciated the scientific credentials that a eugenist ally could lend to the cause of legalizing access to contraception. With real mutual benefits, both parties were motivated to preserve and strengthen their alliance. What, then, are the mutual benefits in the current alliance between neo-Malthusians and feminists?

What do reproductive health feminists want from this alliance? Leaving aside help in attaining broad feminist goals such as investing in the wisdom of women or ensuring women economic rights, reproductive health feminists specifically want to offer more contraceptive choice, to expand services to include areas of reproductive health such as sexually transmitted diseases and prenatal care, to deliver higher quality care, and to include unmarried women as clients. They have two ways of attaining these goals: generating de novo their own stream of funding and establishing a service delivery structure in collaboration with Southern governments, as the population controllers had done in previous decades, or piggy-backing on the funding, bureaucracies and clinics of the population control movement. This latter strategy is attractive both because the funding for population activities is already substantial and because feminists are not only concerned with introducing new services but also in improving the services already offered. From the point of view of the reproductive health feminists, then, an alliance with population controllers has much to offer.

What do population controllers want from this alliance? There seem to be few tangible benefits for population controllers in an alliance that redirects significant amounts of their funds and institutional power to reproductive health feminists. Speaking in May, 1994, Adrienne Germain of the IWHC noted this pragmatic concern of population controllers: "There is a fear, there is a real threat now, there is a demand that we want to do something different with their money." Yet at the ideological level, some neo-Malthusians see benefits flowing from an alliance with feminists. Neo-Malthusianism needs a more politically-correct rationale for fertility control. Reframing family planning programs as reproductive health programs, and population control programs as gender equity programs promise to refurbish an image tarnished by the coercive acts of some governments. The growing weakness of institutional support for population control has also made it difficult for neo-Malthusians to rebuff or deflect overt feminist attempts to reframe population policy without opening themselves up to charges of being sexists or racists, epithets few wish to endure.

Of course, when feminists encountered little opposition from neo-Malthusians in framing the "common ground" agenda, they fashioned a one-sided contract that brought to light the weakness of the neo-Malthusian movement. The lack of overt opposition actually aroused feminist suspicion. Elizabeth McGrory, a feminist who has worked on population issues at the Ford and MacArthur foundations, grew leery after Prep-Com III victories:

Is it actually succeeding, or are they co-opting our language and kind of lulling us into a false sense of security when in fact they are not going to do any of this. 'They' being the white, male, population control establishment.

Little evidence, however, suggests that the acquiescence of neo-Malthusians was or is part of a plot to co-opt feminists. A more serious concern to "common ground" feminists might be that the Programme of Action they fashioned is so devoid of overpopulation rhetoric that it will convince few governments of the need for population stabilization. Perversely, therefore, it provides few additional reasons for funding women's reproductive health programs.

Any consideration of benefits also must examine risks, and there are risks for neo-Malthusians in collaborating with feminists. If the level of public support for women's rights is insufficient to motivate Northern policy makers to fund new reproductive health services and keep appropriations for family planning activities at current levels, then the funds available for family planning may actually decline. If anti-feminist sentiment gains strength, perhaps in conjunction with presidential or congressional elections, then neo-Malthusians could see their interests positively threatened by this alliance. In January of this year a group of abortion opponents in the House of Representative managed to cut the population and family planning budget of USAID for fiscal year 1996 to only 14% of fiscal year 1995 expenditures. These representatives wanted a reinstatement of the Reagan-Bush restrictions on US-funded groups using private money or money provided by other governments for abortion-related activities. International family planning funds are being held hostage in this anti-abortion gambit. Representative Christopher H. Smith, sponsor of this measure, is clear (New York Times, 2/16/96: A14) about this connection: "If population-control organizations insist that they want population money only for family planning activities unrelated to abortion, they could do so under the House provisions by getting out of the abortion business." To the extent that preserving pro-choice options in international family planning offerings is primarily a feminist concern, neo-Malthusians are experiencing in a dramatic fashion the costs of an alliance with feminists (Potts, 1996). Absent this alliance, population controllers more easily would be able to negotiate a deal with social conservatives.

A related risk for feminists involves the extent to which they should acknowledge the problematic nature of high fertility. The endorsement at Cairo of the "common ground" position by Northern and Southern governments and its quick acceptance by international agencies and foundations indicates that serious attempts at implementation are possible. To the extent this alliance is a pragmatic move by feminists to redirect some of the population establishment's resources to women's health programs by playing on the Malthusian fears of rich nations (Germain, 1994), then feminists should acknowledge the seriousness of the population problem simply to sustain the flow of funds to such programs. Yet "common ground" feminists find themselves pulled in different directions by a desire for resources and by a worry over movement discord. They must be Malthusian enough to effectively solicit funds, but anti-Malthusian enough to preserve ties with more radical feminists, especially Southern feminists, who remain staunch opponents to population control. Germain of the IWHC describes this dilemma:

Our constituency includes -- probably by far the majority -- those who really don't think it [population] is a problem... So we have on the one hand that constituency, and on the other hand another constituency which we are very much inclined to work with -- the population establishment -- and to be able to work with them in ways that they cannot simply dismiss us and say that "you're part of that radical ideological group..."

In truth, the cost and benefit ledger of this alliance for each movement presently is indecipherable. Only after a number of dollar and cents funding decisions are made will it be clear if mutual benefits are associated with this alliance. If Northern funding for reproductive health services is not forthcoming, feminists are likely to desert their pragmatic "common ground" and retake the anti-Malthusian high ground. If close ties with feminists and the abortion issue significantly reduce the level of funds available for fertility control programs, population controllers are likely to begin cutting the ties that bind them to feminists. Presently, the mutually beneficial character of this alliance is suspect.

Shared Ideology?

Both Sanger and eugenists shared a conviction that benefits would come from the "less fit" having fewer children. This shared belief fostered the trust that allowed actions to be coordinated and misunderstandings to be negotiated. Is there a common ideology that unites contemporary neo-Malthusians and feminists?

Actually, significant ideological differences are clearly present in the two movement, especially among members who did not accept the common ground agenda. Betsy Hartmann, whose Reproductive Rights and Wrongs (1987) carried forth the radical feminist critique of population control initiated by Gordon and Mass in the early 1970s, is an ideological foe of population control who spoke out early against the alliance. She worried (1990: 45-46) that "the population control establishment" was consciously incorporating "the language of women's rights into its technocratic lexicon" as an "expedient" measure "to bypass the more politically sensitive issues of race and class." She noted that "to reduce population growth, they are willing to call for the education of women, for example, but not for land reform, the redistribution of economic and political power, or the repudiation of internal debt."⁽⁴⁹⁾ Radical feminists abroad echoed these concerns (Nair, 1992: 251): "the women's movement is now being lured into joining population control efforts." "Reproductive rights," Akhter asserted (1992: 5), "is nothing but the slogan for population control in disguise," and all population control "is based on eugenic, racist, sexist, and exploitative actions against certain races and classes of people." She wondered, "how can feminists take part in such exploitative policy?" ⁽⁵⁰⁾

On the population control side, Charles Westoff (1995: 15) clearly opposed what he considered to be a one-sided alliance:

The conference was a resounding success for the advocates of women's reproductive health but a disappointment to many concerned about population growth. And the two are not synonymous.

Malcolm Potts (1995: 4) identified the ideological divide that separated the two groups: "women's advocates rather reluctantly accepted expressions of concern over population growth into the Cairo document," and when considering fertility control "often implied that success is impossible without coercion." Their strategy was to push a "broad" feminist agenda by "painting a negative picture of family planning programs," a strategy that "ended up endangering the politically achievable."

In truth, many of the internationally-oriented American feminists who participated in forming this alliance are overt anti-Malthusians. For instance, at PrepCom III Bella Abzug, WEDO's president, explicitly called on (April, 4, 1994) all parties to repudiate neo-Malthusian goals and adopt feminist ones:

We must ask the means-end question because the rhetoric in this document is better and better. But have the ends changed? Have we achieved a new shared understanding that populationist ends are the wrong end? Is women's equality a fundamental end, in and of itself? Or is the only reason any government or international agency now spends an additional dollar to educate a girl simply to persuade her to have fewer children? Are these concessions to 'women's empowerment' just more carrots?

Although no neo-Malthusian has reciprocated by openly attacking the gender equity goals of feminists, little suggests that they accept the wrongness of their ends. When a mo