Reproductive Rights in Modern France

Maud Bracke’s Reproductive Rights in Modern France analyzes how reproductive liberty and the notion of reproductive citizenship emerged in France between 1950 and 1980, focusing on contraception legalization and abortion liberalization.

Drawing on archival sources and diverse actors—feminists, family planning movements, demographers, medical professionals, disability groups, and actors in overseas departments—the book shows how responsibilisation shaped rights versus responsibilities debates.

It explores stratified reproductive governance, revealing how race, class, and disability influenced who was deemed worthy of reproductive rights, and details distinct policies in Guadeloupe and Martinique.

Bracke also examines the role of disability organizations in discrediting eugenic abortion rhetoric and highlights the silence of mainstream feminism around race and disability, alongside the emergence of Black feminism in late-1970s France.