Reproductive Health

Conflicts between male and female reproductive agendas continue to play out in contemporary issues of sex, power, and politics. Viewing gender through the lens of biologic evolutionary psychology reveals persistent con- troversies surrounding women’s rights. The history of oral contraceptives com- pared with that of erectile dysfunction drugs is just one example of the disparity between female and male reproductive choices. Contraceptives, maternal mortality, abortion, and domestic violence are issues directly influenced by politics, religion, and gender biases. Ultimately, everything that...

Waiting for the results of randomised trials of public health interventions can cost hundreds of lives, especially in poor countries with great need and potential to benefit. If the science is good, we should act before the trials are done. Good science, we suggest, is taking the research to the problem rather than conducting the research in the tallest ivory tower the investigator can find. Randomised controlled trials are needed and, when appropriate, should be part of the empirical evidence necessary for decision making. The question is how much evidence is needed to move from research...

The fifth Millennium Development Goal has brought critical attention to the unacceptably high burden of maternal mortality and the need to improve antenatal health care. However, many of the approaches to reducing maternal mortality (e.g., increasing the number of deliveries at health facilities with skilled attendants or improving access to emergency obstetric care) are complex and will take time to implement. In the meantime, maternal mortality can be reduced relatively inexpensively by preventing unwanted pregnancy through family planning. The decision to practice family planning is...

In 1957, along with many countries in Eastern Europe, Romania liberalised its abortion law. The Soviet model of birth control made surgical abortion easily available, but put restrictions on access to modern contraceptives, leading to an exceptionally high abortion rate. By the mid-1960s there were 1 100 000 abortions performed each year in Romania, a lifetime average of 3.9 per woman, the highest number ever recorded. In October 1966, 1 year after coming to power, in an attempt to boost fertility, Romania’s communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu made abortion broadly illegal, permitting the...