The Politics of Reproductive Health in Twentieth-Century China

Abstract

Abstract Dr. Lin Qiaozhi (1901-83) was China’s foremost female physician whose career reflects the country’s reproductive health policies from the Republican era to the early People’s Republic. This article examines the interconnections of politics and reproductive health campaigns in China, from Republican reliance on foreign philanthropic support, through the early PRC alliance and subsequent break with the Soviet Union, to China’s reforms in the 1970s. Lin’s life illuminates the many central shifts and tensions across the twentieth century: as a Western-trained physician, Lin represents the role of biomedicine in a modernizing China and the importance of reproductive health in forming a robust body politic. As an establishment intellectual, Lin was a model propagandist supporting government policy while using her power as a platform to serve her own goals. As a lifelong single woman with no children, Lin’s life manifests the ongoing conflict between the traditional values of wife and mother versus a woman’s independence, liberation, and the pursuit of a challenging and fulfilling career. Lin’s legacy continues into the twenty-first century as she remains an icon for young women and a role model for members of the medical profession.