Reproductive Coercion: A Widespread Form of Domestic Violence Supported by Anti-Choice Legislation

[redqueen]

As Martha Kempner recently reported here at RH Reality Check,Roman Polanski—admitted rapist and all-around creep—doesn’t like it when women can control their own fertility. “I think that the Pill has changed greatly the woman of our times, ‘masculinizing’ her,” he said, firmly characterizing the ability to control your own body as a male-only privilege. “I think that it chases away the romance from our lives and that’s a great pity.” Polanski, who pled guilty to plying a 13-year-old with alcohol in order to make it easier to forcibly penetrate her, thinks that the way to preserve “romance” is to keep women in a state of fear of pregnancy at male whims.

Sadly, as research is beginning to bear out, this violent man’s negative attitudes toward female reproductive autonomy are not merely the eccentricities of an aging misogynist. A lot of men, it turns out, get off on having power over women’s bodies, and are willing to bully, coerce, and even trick women into pregnancy to get that feeling of power over them. It’s called “reproductive coercion,” and it’s way more common that was previously thought, as Kat Stoeffel reports for The Cut.

Stoeffel references a recent study by Dr. Lindsay Clark of the Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, where 641 women who received routine care were asked if they had been threatened or bullied by their partners into getting pregnant or had even had their partners mess with their contraception, by hiding pills or poking holes in condoms. A shocking 16 percent had experienced such abuse, a number which reflects other, still preliminary studies that show a widespread problem of men trying to force pregnancy on unwilling partners. The problem is both so common and so hidden that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists is recommending that doctors screen for reproductive coercion in addition to more traditional screening for domestic violence.

Why do men who engage in reproductive coercion do such a thing? Don’t they know that if they successfully force their partners to give birth, they too will be responsible for the baby that results? The behavior is definitely not rational if the goal is a harmonious, happy sex and family life. But domestic abusers don’t want a harmonious, happy life. On the contrary, most of them are perfectly happy, often downright eager, to sacrifice happiness and peace in order to get the buzz of feeling powerful and in control, specifically in control of their female partners. Being so in control that you control her body functions is the ultimate form of control.

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We tend to think of anti-choice antics as a separate issue from violence against women, except when anti-choice politicians slip up on occasion and say something that minimizes rape. Considering this small but growing body of research, we really should take a harder look at the connections between abuse of women and reproductive control. The abuser who hides the birth control pills, the sleaze who slips off the condom, the anti-choice protester yelling invective at women seeking abortions, and the politician writing laws to make it harder to get contraception and abortion are all pieces of the same puzzle. All of them want to take away a woman’s basic right to self-determination, and all of them do it because they subscribe to an ideology that paints men as the natural dominators and even owners of women.

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http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/02/reproductive-coercion-a-widespread-form-of-domestic-violence-with-direct-ties-to-anti-choice-legislation/

[Dawson Leery]

1. Roman Polanski, a filthy rapist.

[murielm99]

2. I dated someone like that.

When we became sexually active, I went on the pill. He was threatened by that, and broke up with me. Later, he realized that he had lost one of the best women he would ever find. He tried to get back with me, and I refused to speak to him. I was young, but I realized that he was a very controlling person. I am glad I had that much insight. My life has been better because of it.

[ismnotwasm]

3. This, and the opposite;

Kicking or beating a woman in the abdomen to induce miscarriage, while that topic could use its own thread, it's still an attempt to 'control' reproduction.

The difference being is a beating expelling a fetus will often gets you an actual prison/jail sentence. Putting a woman's life in danger through an unwanted pregnancy isn't even on that radar.