Population Control in the “Global North”?: Canada’s Response to Indigenous Reproductive Rights and Neo-Eugenics

Abstract

An historical analysis of reproductive politics in the Canadian North during the 1970s necessitates a careful reading of the local circumstances regarding feminism, sovereignty, language, colonialism, and access to health services, which differed regionally and culturally. These features were conditioned, however, by international discussions on family planning that fixated on the twinned concepts of unchecked population growth and poverty. Language from these debates crept into discussions about reproduction and birth control in northern Canada, producing the state’s logic that, despite low population density, the endemic poverty in the North necessitated aggressive family planning measures.