Women’s ability to bear and nurse children profoundly affects their lives. Yet, they frequently lack the freedom to control the timing and the number of their children and to make informed decisions regarding their reproductive health. This is both a symptom and a cause of women’s unequal rights and has a significant effect on women’s health. Simply stated, reproductive freedom is critical to women’s equality.

A key theme of international feminism is that of diversity and, in particular, how women’s issues and rights are affected by culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The study of reproductive choice illustrates this theme quite well. For example, reproductive choice is too often tied to socioeconomic status such that rich women are almost always guaranteed this choice whereas other women are not. Women in developing nations face greater reproductive health risks than women in more developed nations, but women in the most developed of nations still suffer from lack of reproductive choice. In some countries, the right to choose abortion and contraception is an issue; in others, the right to refuse it is the issue.

The likelihood of women’s exposure to HIV from heterosexual contact varies significantly across cultures such that the effects of a contraceptive technology on HIV transmission may be more relevant in one culture versus another.

The effectiveness and safety of different contraceptive technologies also may not generalize across cultures.

The danger of a given reproductive technology depends upon the information and medical care received.

Feminists generally feel strongly that women must be able to control the number and spacing of their children before they can achieve equality.

Many cultures place a high value on women having a large number of children and on men who father large number children.

In societies where women feel that they must be married in order to achieve ant kind of respect, they may have children in order to bind their husbands more securely to them.

Reproductive control is both a reflection and a determinant of women’s equality.