In women's struggle for liberation, for the right of self determination, the issue of control over our own bodies, control over the means of reproduction plays a central part. It is a basic aspect of our health and of our liberation, although it must be seen in the larger socio-economic, political and cultural context of our lives. The battle for reproductive freedom must be fought in relation to and as part of the larger struggle. At times, issues such as access to birth control and abortion have been seen in isolation by the women's movement which has led to some serious errors of tactics and even strategy, damaging in the long run the cause of self-determination.

Birth control has had several social purposes in its long history, two of which have been dominant: 1) to increase the freedom of women by giving them control over their bodies and reproduction 2) to control population growth for various reasons (economic, political, social). We are using the term "birth control" here to indicate the first purpose, i.e. reproductive self-determination.

Today, however, the population control establishment has come to dominate the means of contraception. The motivations of the population controllers are not homogeneous. Some sincerely believe that overpopulation, rather than the unequal distribution of resources, is the cause of hunger and misery, of the scarcity of resources in the world. They may even believe they are acting in the best interests of women and contributing to their emancipation. Others are very clear about the economic, political and social reasons for wanting to control population growth, particularly of the poor majorities of Third World countries who form a potential danger to the status quo.

Population control is the antithesis of the women's movements' campaigns for birth control. The struggle for birth control (i.e. reproductive freedom) and the struggle against population control are one and the same struggle. This unity of struggle has sometimes been obscured, however partly because feminist birth control movements have been concentrated largely in the industrialized countries of Europe and North America while population control is aimed ; women in the Third World, or Third World women living in industrialized countries (e.g. Puerto Ricans, Blacks an Native Americans in the USA). European and Northern American feminists have not always been quick enough in perceiving the danger of population control, of dissociating themselves from it and fighting it. Third World victims  population control have sometimes identified it with the feminist birth control movement. The male-controlled political and economic interests who wish to maintain control over women have capitalized on this situation to divide women.

Despite... direct attacks on women's rights, population control has nevertheless been blamed on feminism times. This is another destructive aspect of population control, and a most painful irony for feminists, those on the receiving end of population control grow more resistant, some of their anger has been deflected from its true target, imperialism, to a potential all feminism. In this way the ideological system created by population control has divided its opponent Although feminists have not usually supported coercive population control, they have not fought hard enough against it or dissociated themselves clearly enough from it.  Anti-imperialist organizations have sometimes accepted the identity of birth control and population  control, blithely denying the existence, even in potent! of population problems and implicitly denying the importance of women's rights to control their own bodies. The fusing of the concepts of birth control a population control in mass propaganda functions smother the movement for reproductive freedom Beyond this, in the over-all struggle for freedom for domination, feminism and anti-imperialism have objective basis for unity, in opposition to all of domination. Population control has helped to mask it. (Linda Gordon, Women's Body, Woman's Right Penguin Books, 1977, p. 402).

In the past, as Linda Gordon points out in her book, the birth control movement has sometimes allied with groups or movements whose interests were not self-determination but control. At times birth control and abortion have been seen as single issues, fought for in isolation. This has prevented women from attaining the goal of real reproductive freedom. In oppressive political and economic situations where vast majority of the population lack the basic necessities of life and access to health care, there is no freedom choice, no possibility to control our bodies. In industrialized countries where there are inadequate child care facilities; employment is an economic necessity, there is no freedom of choice. Moreover, the history of abortion laws and access to contraception in the USSR and Eastern Europe show that socialism is no guarantee of a women's right to control her own body.  Women's reproductive freedom has been sacrificed to economic policy and ideological needs. Women all over the world are increasingly seeing the issues of birth control, abortion, population control and sterilization abuse as issues of reproductive freedom and self determination. European and North American women are not only demanding voluntary birth control and abortion but organizing against sterilization abuse and population control. They have also been in the forefront of revealing and denouncing the role of the pharmaceutical industry and the population control establishment in testing and using harmful contraceptive drugs on Third World women. Women in the Third World are not only fighting coercive population control but demanding access to safe means of controlling their reproduction and bodies. These battles are not being fought in isolation but, in the context of our social, political and economic situations, as part of the struggle for liberation.