ABSTRACT
Chapters 3 and 4, in illustrating my thesis, focused on personal charac teristics involved in the structure of social relationships and the organi zation of society. The characteristics were selected both because they are salient in our social system and because they could be studied with a sizable body of quantitative data. The topic of the present chapter was chosen for the same reasons. However, while chapters 3 and 4 examined attributes of the individual, our concern here will be with a form of human activity-namely, procreation-and the jurisprudential theme that emerged for it in the 1960s and 1970s. The central tenet of the theme was that control over procreation among adults should rest with the persons directly involved; a corollary proposition was that government policies aimed at seriously curtailing or burdening such control are unac ceptable. The defining element of the theme was thus the principle of reproductive freedom.
