Reproductive coercion: How men use pregnancy to control women
A man and his pregnant wife. Men use reproductive coercion to trap women through manipulation, contraceptive sabotage and threats, leaving many vulnerable to unintended pregnancies and abuse.
What you need to know:
- Reproductive coercion traps women through manipulation, contraceptive sabotage and threats, leaving many vulnerable to unintended pregnancies and abuse.
- Stealthing and birth control sabotage are hidden forms of intimate partner violence affecting vulnerable women.
Some men deliberately ignore contraceptives, reject condoms and intentionally impregnate women to control and trap them. This cunning and calculated strategy is commonly known as reproductive coercion. It involves pressuring women to conceive through manipulation, covert birth control sabotage and violent threats.
Reproductive coercion leads to unintended pregnancies, which remain a persistent public health concern and are disproportionately experienced by poor black women globally. Many women are unaware that this intimidating behaviour is a form of intimate partner violence used to cause pregnancy through hidden motives.
Numerous men have admitted engaging in this practice to assert control over pregnancies and decisions about whether and when women should have children. A recent longitudinal report estimated that between 5.0 and 13 per cent of young adult women attending family planning clinics had experienced reproductive coercion.
Women and adolescents may experience reproductive coercion in violent or abusive relationships, but the practice is also common in the absence of physical or verbal abuse. Studies found that young black women who rely on male partners for financial or housing support are less likely to practise safe sex and are more likely to experience reproductive coercion. Research further suggests that implicit forms of reproductive coercion undermine HIV prevention interventions.
Women who reported reproductive coercion had three times the likelihood of pregnancy compared to those who reported no coercion. Among women who became pregnant after coercion, only 15 per cent wanted to be pregnant at that time or earlier. Forced condom non-use, forced intercourse and interference with contraceptive use have significantly contributed to unintended pregnancies among adolescents and have also resulted in rapid repeat pregnancies among teenagers and adults.
Women who reported reproductive coercion are also at greater risk of unwanted or mistimed pregnancies, while semen exposure associated with these pregnancies disproportionately increases the risk of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Whether implicit or overt, reproductive coercion undermines birth control and weakens the effectiveness of preventive sexual health measures.
A sample of black women aged 18–24, recruited from community settings in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, between 2012 and 2014, said their concerns, goals and ambitions were often treated as secondary whenever men used reproductive coercion to force them into pregnancy.
Men engaging in this practice use different tactics to force or deceive their female partners into becoming pregnant. They may order women not to use birth control, threaten to leave them if they do not conceive, warn that they will have children with other partners, or physically assault them for failing to become pregnant.
Birth control sabotage includes secretly removing a condom during sex or poking holes in it to impregnate a partner. Other forms of contraceptive sabotage include deliberately breaking condoms and confiscating women’s birth control prescriptions. Preventing women from visiting clinics to obtain contraceptives and forcing them to have unprotected sex are also forms of contraceptive sabotage.
No consent
The act of intentionally removing a condom during sex or tampering with it without a partner’s consent is known as stealthing. In several jurisdictions, it is classified as sexual assault or rape and is punishable by law.
The outcomes of contraceptive sabotage include unintended pregnancies, a global public health concern that disproportionately affects some black women. The racial gap is significant and should not be ignored, as 60 per cent of black women surveyed globally reported that their partners used deceptive tactics to impregnate them, compared to 24 per cent of white women.
Unintended pregnancy figures correlate with these findings, yet many cases remain unreported because numerous women do not recognise reproductive coercion as a form of intimate partner violence. In some countries, national constitutions do not provide for mandatory arrest measures that could encourage women to report such violations.
A disproportionate number of reproductive coercion cases involve men who exploit their partners’ economic vulnerability while contributing little to the welfare of the children they father. Others use the tactic to prevent break-ups, control women or reduce the autonomy of the women they are romantically involved with.
With persistently high rates of mass incarceration of black men in the US and parts of Europe, some repeatedly impregnate black women to discourage them from leaving while they are imprisoned. The US National Survey of Family Growth found that many repeat pregnancies among black women were linked to reproductive coercion.
The cover of Reproductive Coercion: The Concealed Kind of Intimate Partner Violence.
Reproductive coercion is a form of patriarchal control and includes physical, psychological, sexual and economic abuse within intimate relationships. While advocating the protection of women, a scientific report, titled Reproductive Coercion: The Concealed Kind of Intimate Partner Violence, recommended that clinicians screen patients for reproductive coercion. The report also advised hospitals to use semen exposure biomarkers such as PSA or Yc-PCR to identify condom sabotage or stealthing, and to refer affected women to supportive services.
The writer is a novelist, Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative, and founder of Jeff's Fitness Centre (@jeffbigbrother).
