An Original Investigation into Population Ethics and Reproductive Justice in Nigerian Demographic Policy

The ethical dimensions of demographic policy in Nigeria, including questions of reproductive justice, coercive fertility reduction, and the rights of future generations, have been largely absent from demographic scholarship, and developing an original normative framework that integrates population ethics with Nigerian legal and cultural contexts represents a significant interdisciplinary contribution. This study conducted an original investigation into population ethics and reproductive justice in Nigerian demographic policy. A normative-empirical methodology was employed, combining systematic review of population ethics literature (49 publications from 2018 to 2024), legal and constitutional analysis of Nigerian reproductive rights provisions, empirical exploration of community perspectives on reproductive decision-making through focus groups with 60 participants from six geopolitical zones, and expert consultation with 20 ethicists, legal scholars, and demographers. Legal analysis confirmed that Nigerian constitutional provisions support reproductive autonomy but that population policy documents historically employed coercive language inconsistent with constitutional guarantees. Community focus groups revealed zone-specific tension between individual reproductive rights and communal fertility norms, with significant variation in the perceived legitimacy of state intervention in fertility decisions. The original Reproductive Justice Framework for Nigerian Demographic Policy proposes four ethical principles: non-coercion, capability enhancement, equity, and intergenerational justice, each operationalised with specific policy implications. Expert review confirmed the framework's original normative and disciplinary contribution to Nigerian demography.

Keywords: population ethics, reproductive justice, Nigerian policy, normative framework, demographic rights