Reproductive Choice in German New Guinea, German East Africa, and Germany

• Department of History

PhD thesis defence by Anna Orinsky

This project explores the implementation of bans and stigmatisation efforts that affected reproductive choice in the German colonies in East Africa and the Pacific. It is based on archival research and detailed primary source analysis. The period studied spans from 1885 to 1929. As private enterprises and missionaries continued colonial efforts beyond the era of German colonialism and colonial revisionism lasted well into the national socialist period, this project also extends its scope beyond ‘formal’ German colonialism. At its core, the project focuses on the actors who tried to influence reproductive choice practices, as well as the providers and beneficiaries of abortion, infanticide, and contraception. The thesis investigates the exchange of ideas regarding reproductive choice between Germany and its colonies, noting that jurisdiction and policies on human reproduction varied widely and metropolitan measures did not necessarily serve as blueprints for colonial interventions. Diverse versions of banning various forms of reproductive choice were introduced into the so-called ‘native law’ of the German colonies at the discretion of individual colonial governors. To understand these complex dynamics of transmission, the project examines concepts of empire, religious and economic motives, views on womanhood, and ideas about the beginning of (colonised) life. Religious ideals and moral understandings, eugenics, Christian authority, emerging science and science ethics, tradition and the belief that foetuses possess souls all supported bans and restrictions controlling female reproduction. These ideological and moral constructs were broadcast ‘at home’ in the metropole and the colonial peripheries. At the same time, the ‘civilising’ translation efforts sparked debates within which metropolitan and local notions of reproductive choice and the value of human life intertwined and contradicted one another.

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