Subtitle: Puerto Rican Women's Struggle for Reproductive Freedom
Author: Iris Lopez
Subject: Anthropology , Women's Studies
Paper ISBN 978-0-8135-4373-4
Cloth ISBN 978-0-8135-4372-7
Pages: 208 pages
Publication Date: November 2008

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"In this unique and compelling book, Iris Lopez not only encourages a rethinking of reproductive models but features women's own voices and life experiences. I recommend Matters of Choice to anyone interested in learning more about how the national, class and racist legacies of reproductive policies influence the lives of women today."
-Dr. Alice Colón Warren, Researcher, Social Science Research Center, University of Puerto Rico

"In Matters of Choice, Iris Lopez presents a nuanced analysis of the multiple forces that lead to high sterilization rates of Puerto Rican women. Using their voices, Lopez illuminates women's reproductive agency, pushing us to think more deeply about the meaning of la operación."
-Patricia Zavella, Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

"A heart-wrenching look at US domination over working-class Puerto Rican women that has been largely unexplored until now."-Juan Flores, author of The Diaspora Strikes Back: Caribeño Tales of Learning and Turning

"Matters of Choice is that rare work of scholarship whose ideas and rich findings are central to the literatures on social movements and gender studies. Lopez explodes the usual binary of victim vs. free agent and helps us to imagine what real reproductive justice might look like." -Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Sterilization remains one of the most popular forms of fertility control in the world, but it has received little acknowledgment for decreasing birthrates on account of its dubious use as a means of population control, especially in developing countries.

In Matters of Choice, Iris Lopez presents a comprehensive analysis of the dichotomous views that have portrayed sterilization either as part of a coercive program of population control or as a means of voluntary, even liberating, fertility control by individual women. Drawing upon her twenty-five years of research on sterilized Puerto Rican women from five different families in Brooklyn, Lopez untangles the interplay between how women make fertility decisions and their social, economic, cultural, and historical constraints. Weaving together the voices of these women, she covers the history of sterilization and eugenics, societal pressures to have fewer children, a lack of adequate health care, patterns of gender inequality, and misinformation provided by doctors and family members.

Lopez makes a stirring case for a model of reproductive freedom, taking readers beyond victim/agent debates to consider a broader definition of reproductive rights within a feminist anthropological context.

Iris Lopez is the director of the Latin American and Caribbean studies program and an associate professor in the department of sociology at the City College of New York. She is coauthor of Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios.