ABSTRACT
The nonfeminist bioethicists rarely focused on how the reproduction-controlling technologies of contraception and sterilization affected the interests of women in particular. Instead, they emphasized the mysterious status of persons who might have been called into existence. For nonfeminist bioethicists, sterilization raises approximately the same set of bioethical considerations as does contraception, the primary difference being sterilization's relative permanence. Most nonfeminist bioethicists also endorse the use of contraceptives for the purpose of population control. Feminist bioethicists raise many of the same concerns about contraception and sterilization as do nonfeminist bioethicists, but they ask additional moral questions that deepen and broaden the debate. Feminists' reservations about sterilization partly arise from the procedure's long history of abuse in the United States, beginning in the late nineteenth century and officially ending as late as the 1960s when most state eugenic laws were declared unconstitutional. Feminists also wish to protect teens from traumatic and unnecessary abortions.
