Reproductive abuse happens when someone tries to control another person’s reproductive choices through manipulation, coercion, threats, or direct interference with birth control or pregnancy decisions. It is an often-overlooked form of abuse that strips away autonomy and turns deeply personal decisions about one’s body and future into tools of control.
Some studies suggest that around 8–10% of people experience reproductive coercion in their lifetime, while others find rates as high as 37.8% in certain groups. This can include pressuring someone into pregnancy, sabotaging contraception, or lying about birth control.
The best way to stay safe is to recognize early signs of control or manipulation around reproductive choices. Once you realize your reproductive autonomy is being violated, plan your next steps carefully. Abusers often tie control of fertility to emotional or financial dependence, so leaving or protecting yourself may require discreet planning and outside support.
How Men Engage Reproductive Abuse:
Some men engage in reproductive abuse by pressuring, manipulating, or forcing women into pregnancy. These men, sometimes called “womb-chasers” or fertility gold-diggers, see women not as people but as means to fulfill their own desires for legacy, control, emotional security, or crafting a narcissistic image of a good family man.
They may:
– Coerce a woman into having “just one more baby” even if she has already said no.
– Threaten to abandon, cheat on her, or replace her if she will not get pregnant.
– Calling fertility centres without a woman's consent or active participation in the process.
– Sabotage birth control by hiding condoms, refusing to use them, or tampering with a partner’s contraception.
– Guilt or pressure her by invoking religion, family expectations, or the idea that “a real woman” gives him children.
The consequences can be severe. There may be resentment, loss of attraction, chronic fighting, emotional withdrawal, divorce, and potentially psychological impacts on the victim. The woman may feel trapped in a cycle of pregnancies she never truly consented to, robbed of her agency and sense of self. Over time she may stop feeling like a person with dreams, goals, and autonomy, and instead feel like a vessel valued only for reproduction.
Conversely, some men abuse women by preventing them from having desired children, such as forcing a woman to have an abortion, use contraception, or obtain permanent sterilization methods. Again, when a person's reproductive autonomy is controlled by someone else, this is wrong and abusive. It is important for decisions around reproduction to be made solely by people in a loving, supportive relationship, where both parties are in agreement or are willing to discuss compromises around reproduction, completely of their own free will.
How Women Engage Reproductive Abuse:
Some women engage in reproductive abuse by manipulating or deceiving men into fatherhood against their will. These women may view pregnancy or childbearing as a way to secure emotional attachment, financial stability, or control over a partner’s life and choices. In these cases, reproduction becomes a means of power rather than a shared decision rooted in trust and consent.
This can include:
– Lying about being on birth control when they are not.
– Poking holes in condoms or hiding contraception.
– Using pregnancy to trap a partner in a relationship, gain financial support, or manipulate emotional commitment.
– Concealing or faking pregnancy losses to control a man’s behavior or keep him invested.
These behaviors are equally abusive. They violate consent and weaponize parenthood. The victim may feel tricked, trapped, or burdened with lifelong responsibilities he never agreed to, which can lead to anger, mistrust, and emotional damage.
What Makes It Abuse
Reproductive abuse is less about wanting to create life together within a loving partnership, and more about selfishly putting one's own desires above the wishes of a loved one. This involves an inflated sense of entitlement to use another human being for something that person can provide, whether a womb or financial support without complete consent. When someone’s ability to freely decide about their own body, fertility, or family planning is diminished, that is a violation of any human's right to autonomy.
True partnership means respecting each other’s reproductive boundaries. Consent, not coercion, should guide every decision about sex, contraception, and parenthood. If someone is pressuring, threatening, deceiving, or forcing reproductive choices on you, that is not love. That is entitlement, objectification, and control.