28
PARTISAN
R~VIEW
fresh examination of the values of technologically oriented
soci~ty,
recognition not only of its capricious lack of thrift and short-sighted
profiteering, but of the increasing disappearance of certain
val\.l~s
such as intimacy, protectiveness toward the living , respect for
vari~ty
and variation, and for natural processes. To some extent this analysis
might be seen as a reassertion of prepatriarchal values. However ,
these movements do aim, among other things , at a reduction of the
birth rate ; and they are presumably prepared to achieve this, if ex–
pedient, by propaganda aimed at evoking guilt in women who wish
to become biological mothers.
Moreover, the control by women of their bodies has never
b~en
recognized as a primary issue in these movements . A report by a British
feminist on the International World Population Conference at
Bucharest in 1974 notes that :
Despite lip-service to the idea that couples and families
(never
women) should have the right to determine the number anq
spacing of their children , in no case is this right seen as more im–
portant than the requirements of the economy . A brief look at
the history of the developed countries-both capitalist and
SQ–
cialist-over the past 50 years will confirm that it is alwlj.Ys
women who are expected to adjust their fertility to the need for
labor or cannon-fodder, never the economy which must adapt
tp
an increasing or decreasing birthrate .
In contrast, the Black nationalist movement has declared
rha~
birth control and abortion are "genocidal" and that Black womer
should feel guilty if they do
not
provide children to carryon the
BiIlCk
struggle for survival. Black women have increasingly
reject~p
this
rhetoric, however, and have criticized "the irresponsible, poorly
thought-out call to young girls, on-the-margin scufflers, every Sister
at large to abandon the pill that gives her certain decis!oq
pOW~f,
;I.
power that for a great many of us is all we know, given
the
S(!tup in
this country and in our culture." A community organizer arq motp.–
er, Janis Morris states that "the Black woman has got to consider
what is best for the child during pregnancy and after birth, and too
often she has to bear all the responsibility alone . So frankly, when the
sister tells a brother
T
m not going to have this baby,' it ain't no–
body's business but her own . "
