BIRTH CONTROL AND EUGENICS IN BRAZIL: MASS STERILIZATION AND CONTRACEPTIVE METHODS AS DEVICES OF RACISM (C.1910-1993)
Birth control; eugenics; racism; contraceptive methods; mass sterilization.
This paper sets out to identify the main motivations and actors involved in the plot of birth control throughout the twentieth century. In order to understand the motivations behind the effort to reduce fertility rates in countries of the global south, this research associates eugenics, birth control and the myth of the population explosion. The arguments for birthrate intervention have shifted, although the advocates and funders of this cause have remained the same. Originally, eugenics worked as a basis for justifying the prevention of births from racialized peoples, but due to its post-World War II condemnation, its postulates had to be omitted and old desires took on a new guise. The desire for the elimination of peoples considered as inferior was transformed into the myth of the population explosion. Economic, environmental, and national security pretexts were used to attribute reasonable intentions to intervene in the demography of countries in the global south and/or localities with poor populations - and always with a non-white majority - even if this meant violating human rights, especially those of women representing disposable and unwanted peoples. In view of this, this dissertation investigates the intricacies that underpinned birth control internationally and nationally.