TY - JOUR
T1 - Thirty years of ‘strange bedmates’
T2 - The ICPD and the nexus of population control, feminism, and family planning
AU - Senderowicz, Leigh
AU - Nandagiri, Rishita
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2025/2/4
Y1 - 2025/2/4
N2 - Widely credited with ending population control and ushering in a new era of reproductive rights, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action also included some important compromises. The commemoration of ICPD+30 presents an opportune moment to reflect critically on those compromises and their implications for family planning programmes in the three decades since. Here, we critically examine how these compromises have enabled population control logics to flourish within global family planning programmes and the ways that neo-Malthusian concerns still motivate contraceptive programming under co-opted feminist rhetoric. We argue that rather than binary stances of ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ contraception, the post-ICPD landscape includes multiple contested positions, including: (1) concern for reproductive rights and autonomy; (2) concern over fertility or population dynamics; and (3) opposition to biomedical contraception and abortion. Setting out the intersecting and diverging tenets of these ideologies, we call for more critical reflection on these tangled histories and engagement with reproductive justice during ICPD+30.
AB - Widely credited with ending population control and ushering in a new era of reproductive rights, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action also included some important compromises. The commemoration of ICPD+30 presents an opportune moment to reflect critically on those compromises and their implications for family planning programmes in the three decades since. Here, we critically examine how these compromises have enabled population control logics to flourish within global family planning programmes and the ways that neo-Malthusian concerns still motivate contraceptive programming under co-opted feminist rhetoric. We argue that rather than binary stances of ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ contraception, the post-ICPD landscape includes multiple contested positions, including: (1) concern for reproductive rights and autonomy; (2) concern over fertility or population dynamics; and (3) opposition to biomedical contraception and abortion. Setting out the intersecting and diverging tenets of these ideologies, we call for more critical reflection on these tangled histories and engagement with reproductive justice during ICPD+30.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85216800160&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00324728.2024.2441824
DO - 10.1080/00324728.2024.2441824
M3 - Article
SN - 0032-4728
SP - 1
JO - POPULATION STUDIES
JF - POPULATION STUDIES
ER -