Her Womb, Her Call

World over, women’s autonomy is endangered by fertility panics. But their choice must prevail

When Delhi’s CM says that women are not babymaking machines, she’s bang on. Sure, this is in the context of her govt’s Lakshmi Yojana scheme, where denying it to those with more than three children could be part of a broader strategy to limit the number of claimants. But the principle holds and bears underlining when it’s under attack on several fronts. Particularly in the south, political leaders of all stripes, Andhra CM and Tamil Nadu speaker included, have been telling folk to have more children. This isn’t a sex-neutral demand. Ours is a society where women already bear many coercions – forced sterilisation, forced pregnancy, marital rape exemptions, employer discrimination against pregnant workers. Against this backdrop, “demographic disadvantage” becomes code for further erosion of their right to make decisions about their body.

Such talk minimises generational value shifts. It also glosses over the finances of the matter, like India’s education inflation clocking in at 10-12% annually. And as for all the globally powerful men subsuming women’s reproductive decisions into the collective project, they have terribly dodgy cred. Xi’s pushing Chinese women to have more babies, with the same state apparatus that suppressed births earlier. Putin’s shoving Russian mothers’ children into an unending war, even as he tells them to have “seven, eight or more” more.

Yes, fertility is declining, in India and in the world. There are policymakers who have tried to bump it back up, but not one has succeeded, not really. It’s one thing for them to keep trying. Go ahead and subsidise childcare, or expand paternity leave. But don’t lose sight of this fundamental fact: having children is a human choice, not a civic duty. And definitely stop foisting this duty on women. Women can want children, not want them, want one child instead of three, prioritise their career, postpone motherhood. Modern citizenship gives them autonomy, which earlier reproductive straitjackets didn’t.

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