¹Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, 5-21 Tory Building, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2H4. E-mail: kgranzow@ualberta.ca

Abstract

In North America, 'women's right to choose' refers to the feminist struggle for women's decision-making in whether, when and with whom to have children. The arrival of 'choice' as a 'woman's right' has been associated with women's more general arrival at self-determination and/or liberation. Contemporary critiques of 'women's right to choose,' however, speculate on the threats to women inherent in a choice-oriented and liberalist paradigm. This paper takes up the problem of women's choice as it relates to women's use of the oral contraceptive pill in the Canadian context. First, drawing on theoretical arguments and then on empirical findings from a qualitative study of 'choice' in pill use, this paper challenges the limits and possibilities for women's choosing. While the theoretical piece disassembles the ideal of 'choice' and interrogates its humanist commitments, the empirical offers insight into the profound complexity faced by women in negotiating their contraceptive needs. The article concludes with a sense that women's decision-making around pill use is complicated, embodied, relational and dynamic.