Forced Motherhood in Italy

Abstract

When men do favor birth control (usually for purely economic reasons) they seek to control every phase of it. A thirty-twoyear-old Roman woman with six children, seven abortions, and fifteen years of marriage told this story: Last week my husband and I fought because he said that there were some vaginal suppositories missing from the box. I told him that was impossible. You know what he did? He locked up those damned suppositories and he keeps the key on him.7 In spite of male opposition, many women do take contraception into their own hands. The pill is preferred because it can be taken in secret. However, taking the pill in Italy does not mean that your contraceptive problems are over. Italian doctors prescribe the pill in the following manner: three months on the pill followed by one month off to give the ovaries a rest. There is no scientific evidence to prove that this way of taking the pill is beneficial to women. Many women become pregnant during the rest period. Although they are told to be careful, women are not usually given alternative forms of contraception. The rest period is beneficial only to doctors who seem to need the reassurance that the ovaries of their patients are still functioning properly and that their patients are fertile. Although younger women often know quite a lot about birth control, they are still deeply influenced by the traditional image of Italian women. The idea that pregnancy is a woman's natural state has left its mark on them. There are two important factors influencing this idea: the Catholic concept of sin, and women's self-image. The Catholic idea that sex is sinful has been popularly reinterpreted to mean that somehow it is less sinful when one runs the risk of pregnancy or abortion. Besides this, many young women fear to use birth control because they are afraid that they might be sterile. They seem to need pregnancy to prove to themselves that they are fertile. Even if they have no intention of having a child, fertility still remains the yardstick of womanhood. Italian women have been brought up to center their lives on men. They accept male pleasure and sexual standards as their own. They defend their man's idea that intercourse should be spontaneous and natural and that mechanical birth control devices get in the way, while at the same time frequently admitting that they are terrified of the idea of pregnancy. A twentythree-year-old woman who had an unwanted child and an abortion, both within two years' time was asked at a self-help meeting why she didn't use contraception. Her answer: I'm afraid to take