Women’s Reproductive Health in Yemen By T.S. Sunil and Vijayan P ...

Chapter 1

Introduction

During the late 1950s, the international community was concerned about the rapidly increasing population, particularly in developing countries, and the importance of fertility control measures to control population growth. To manage this situation, several developing countries introduced family planning programs that emphasized the use of contraceptives. Studies indicate that family planning programs have significantly reduced fertility in developing countries since the 1960s (Attane, 2001; Bongaarts, 2002, 2003; Fargues, 1989); however, during this time there was a growing concern about the ethical issues in population control programs (Bondestam, 1980; Westoff, 1994).

The population control metaphor normalizes coercive policies in several developing countries. The coercive one-child policy in China (Cheng & Rajulton, 1992), the legislative policies in Singapore, and the sterilization policies in India in the