Childbirth strike

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A birthing strike is understood to mean the denial of pregnancies or their termination in order to refer to political and social demands. In a broader sense, however, the term is also used as a political catchphrase for the decline in the birth rate that has occurred since the 1990s .

history

The term was first used in 1892, when the feminist Marie Huot called for a “grève des ventres” conference, for a birthing strike. The French neo-Malthusians around Paul Robin believed that they had found a means to overturn the structure of society in the class struggle: “By restricting the number of births, the exploitation of the workforce would automatically decrease, since fewer workers would be available. The wages would inevitably rise. "

In 1913 there was a debate in the German and French labor movements about a birthing strike as a means of political combat. Against the background of a still outlawed birth control , it was discussed whether it would be easier for working-class families with fewer children to take part in a fight against capitalism . For this purpose, contraception should be used. In the birthing strike debate, Clara Zetkin spoke out clearly against birth control, as the working class is dependent on the masses in its liberation struggle. Rosa Luxemburg supported this position. The doctors Fritz Brupbacher , Alfred Bernstein and Julius Moses supported the birthing strike and saw it as a suitable political means to assert welfare state demands for better mother and baby protection.

On February 18, 1917, during a debate on the family situation , the Prussian House of Representatives in Berlin rejected the call by the Social Democratic Working Group to organize a birthing strike. She wanted to prevent the birth of future soldiers.

Today, the innovative South Korea is the country with the lowest birth rate, because women perceive the social structures as "patriarchal and deeply unjust".

See also

literature

  • Anna Bergmann : Women, Men, Sexuality and Birth Control. The birth strike debate in Berlin in 1913 . In: Karin Hausen (Ed.): Women are looking for their story. Historical studies of the 19th and 20th centuries (Beck'sche black series; Vol. 276). Beck, Munich 1983, pp. 81-108, ISBN 3-406-09276-4 .
  • Malte König: Birth Control. Abortion and Contraception in France and Germany, 1870–1940 . In: Francia. Research on Western European History 38 (2011), pp. 127–148.
  • Karin Kozuch : Between forced labor and forced sterilization. The population policy debate in the international women's movement (Publications of the Black Widow. Autonomous Women's Research Center; Vol. 2). Unrast Verlag, Münster, 1999, ISBN 3-928300-90-3 .
  • Parental leave - childbirth strike (dossier). In: EMMA , 2001, July / August.
  • Dieter Nelles: Anarchosyndicalism and the Sexual Reform Movement in the Weimar Republic. Written for the workshop "Free Love and the Labor Movement", Second workshop in the series "Socialism and Sexuality" . International Institute of Social History , Amsterdam, October 6, 2000. ( PDF )
  • Francis Ronsin: La grève des ventres. Propagande neo-malthusienne et baisse de la natalité en France (XIXe-XXe siècle) , Paris, 1980.
  • Karl Heinz Roth : Controversies about birth control on the eve of the First World War. A documentary on the Berlin “Birth Strike Debate of 1913” . In: autonomy. Materials versus the Factory Company , Vol. 9 (1978), ISSN  0341-3640
  • Birth strike against nuclear power. An open letter . In: analysis & criticism No. 273 of August 25, 1986, ISSN  0945-1153

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Malte König: Birth Control. Abortion and Contraception in France and Germany, 1870–1940 . In: Francia. Research on Western European History 38 (2011), p. 134.
  2. ^ Robert Jütte : Lust without burden. History of contraception from antiquity to the present (Beck'sche Reihe; vol. 1511). Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49430-7 , pp. 253-257.
  3. ^ Anneke Kuhn (ed.): The Chronicle of Women . Chronik Verlag, Dortmund 1992, ISBN 3-611-00195-3 , p. 415.
  4. ↑ Katharina Graça Peters: Birth strike in South Korea: children? Without me. Spiegel Online , March 7, 2020, accessed March 10, 2020 .