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In this paper, I discuss the prohibition of the injectible contraceptive Depo‐Provera in Zimbabwe in 1981 by analysing the confluence of events which led both to its popularity amongst Zimbabwean women and to the suspicion in which it was held by many Zimbabwean men. I argue that the prohibition of Depo‐Provera must be seen both as an act of nationalist self‐assertion by the newly victorious majority government under ZANU (PF) and also as a significant moment in the gendered politics of reproduction in Zimbabwe. During the era of the white minority government in the 1960s and 1970s, Depo‐Provera was constructed by Africans as a form of medical colonisation of African women's bodies and, because of its centrality to the white regime's population control strategies, as a weapon for cutting down the African nation by preventing future generations of Zimbabweans from being born. At the same time, Depo …