Mytheli Sreenivas professor and chair of women's, gender and sexuality studies, and professor of history at Ohio State University will be joining WGSS and South Asian studies for a presentation on “Population, Eugenics, and Reproductive (In)Justice: Legalizing Abortion in India”

After the Dobbs decision, which ended the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, some supporters of abortion rights celebrated India’s more liberal law, which had recently been amended to allow abortion until 24 weeks of gestation. Beginning from this stark divergence in Indian and U.S. histories of abortion, this talk takes a deeper look at the origins and implications of legalizing abortion in India. Tracing the historical roots of legal abortion in population control and eugenics, I situate abortion within a wider politics of reproduction in India—a politics that has not centered the rights of women and pregnant persons but has instead asserted the government’s control over the reproductive capacities of marginalized women. I also consider how we might grapple with these difficult, sometimes painful histories, in order to envision more just reproductive futures.