On the modernity of traditional contraception: time and the social context of fertility

摘要

Family planning research and policy have emphasized biomedical contraception as a matter of course. Indeed, a method transition--from low-technology, essentially behavioral forms of pregnancy avoidance to high-technology, biomedically efficient contraception--has become part of the fertility transition model, alongside the emergence of the calculus of conscious choice and the centrality of parity-specific control. In this way of thinking, "traditional" contraception should give way to "modern" family planning through processes of development, as the economic and social costs of effective birth control decline. So strong is this ideology that some program-oriented groups do not consider "traditional" methods to be contraception at all. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, for example, counts women using a "traditional" method among those "in need of contraception" (Alan Guttmacher Institute 1994: 6). This equation has taken hold despite the fact that the prototypical fertility transition, that of Europe, relied largely on the traditional methods of withdrawal and abstinence, alongside abortion (see, e.g., Fisher 2000; Santow 1995; Schneider and Schneider 1996). This article questions the common wisdom about the category "traditional" contraception.