Coercion and Long-Term Contraceptives

Abstract

Some public health groups and womens advocates worry that long-term contraceptives could be forced upon women of low socioeconomic status and others. The author agrees that long-acting contraceptives such as Norplant which are easy to monitor and do not require user compliance clearly have a potential for coercive use. That potential for coercion is greater where there are financial incentives due to the risk that financial pressures will force individuals to make reproductive choices which are not in accordance with their own values and preferences. The author however finds it unlikely that small amounts of money would constitute such pressure. Small financial incentives combined with other types of encouragement could actually help counteract the psychosocial pressures among some groups toward teen pregnancy. It is more difficult to determine whether incentives paid to Norplant recipients who receive public assistance are coercive. In closing the author stresses that coercion is not always unjustified or improper with some socially desirable ends capable of being achieved only through mutually agreed upon coercive policies such as taxation and immunization.