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Mastering the Sexual Self: Contraception and Sexuality 1890s–1950s

Hera Cook

in The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception 1800-1975

This chapter examines in detail the methods of contraception used from the 1890s to the 1950s, including abstaining from sexual intercourse. These include spermicides, condoms, diaphragms and other ... More

This chapter examines in detail the methods of contraception used from the 1890s to the 1950s, including abstaining from sexual intercourse. These include spermicides, condoms, diaphragms and other contraceptive devices, abortion, anal sex, and breastfeeding. The impact of poor quality rubber and the absence of quality control are considered along with the limited evidence on contraceptive effectiveness. The chapter concludes with comment on the diminished sexual pleasure that resulted from use of the methods, especially for women.Less

Family Fertility

C. Y. Cyrus Chu and Ruoh‐Rong Yu

in Understanding Chinese Families: A Comparative Study of Taiwan and Southeast China

This chapter studies various aspects of family fertility in Taiwan and China, including the age of marriage, the duration from marriage to the first birth, mandatory vs. voluntary family planning, ... More

This chapter studies various aspects of family fertility in Taiwan and China, including the age of marriage, the duration from marriage to the first birth, mandatory vs. voluntary family planning, the contraceptive practices, the preferences for sons, the newborn sex ratio, and the quantity‐quality tradeoffs. With respect to basic statistics, various measures against the degree of urbanization and the educational level of wives are cross‐tabulated. Concerning quantity‐quality tradeoffs, the instrumental variable method was applied and it was found that there does not exist a negative relationship between sibship size and educational attainment, for both Taiwan and China. Finally, the analysis on birth duration shows that co‐residing with the husband's parents shortens the first two birth durations in Taiwan.Less

. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and the Prevention of Conception

George Anastaplo

in Reflections on Life, Death, and the Constitution

This chapter examines the most influential [United States] Supreme Court decisions of the latter part of the twentieth century in “Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).” It notes that under attack on that ... More

This chapter examines the most influential [United States] Supreme Court decisions of the latter part of the twentieth century in “Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).” It notes that under attack on that occasion was a Connecticut law forbidding the use of contraceptive devices to prevent pregnancies. It provides that in Griswold, the Supreme Court, by a vote of 7-2, held the law invalid after “operators of a birth control clinic had been prosecuted for aiding married couples to violate the law, furnishing them advice on contraceptive devices.”Less

Contraception and Abortion Within Protestant Christianity

GLORIA H. ALBRECHT

in Sacred Rights: The Case for Contraception and Abortion in World Religions

This chapter discusses the issues of contraception and abortion within Protestant Christianity. It argues that Protestantism has moved in the direction of accepting the importance of family planning ... More

This chapter discusses the issues of contraception and abortion within Protestant Christianity. It argues that Protestantism has moved in the direction of accepting the importance of family planning and the use of contraceptives, and support for legal access to abortion. It begins with a discussion of the history and spread of Protestant Christianity. It then examines the development of Protestant positions on contraception during the Reformation and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Less

Family Planning: A Century of Change

Jacqueline E. Darroch

in Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth Century America

As the 20th century dawned, American women typically became biologically capable of conceiving children at age fifteen, were married at age twenty-two, and had an average of 3.6 children during their ... More

As the 20th century dawned, American women typically became biologically capable of conceiving children at age fifteen, were married at age twenty-two, and had an average of 3.6 children during their reproductive lives. In contrast, for women born during the last third of the 1900s experienced menarche at age thirteen, first engaged in sexual intercourse at age seventeen, and had an average of 2.1 children. These changes during the 20th century reflect the technologic changes in family-planning methods available to American women and men increasing couples' ability to successfully control the number and timing of children, increased women's control over fertility, and gave rise to alternative medical provider networks for women's reproductive-health care. This chapter summarizes key changes in family planning over the last century and provides an overview of changes in contraceptive technology and in the provision of reproductive health and contraceptive services.Less

Teaching Birth Control on Tobacco Road and Mill Village Alley: Race, Class, and Birth Control in Public Health

Johanna Schoen

in Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth Century America

In the 1930s, public health professionals launched birth control programs as part of their infant and maternal health measures. In addition to reducing infant and maternal mortality rates, offering ... More

In the 1930s, public health professionals launched birth control programs as part of their infant and maternal health measures. In addition to reducing infant and maternal mortality rates, offering birth control to poor women also seemed attractive for economic and eugenic reasons. Public health birth control services simultaneously offered women reproductive control and provided control over poor women's reproduction. Although clients recognized the race and class prejudices behind many family planning programs, they took advantage of the services offered, and bargained with authorities over the conditions of contraceptive advice. Women's lack of access to contraceptive services, their poverty, their race, and gender significantly influenced their decision to participate in contraceptive field trials or take advantage of birth control programs.Less

Exogenous Hormones

JAMES V. LACEY, GRAHAM A. COLDITZ, and DAVID SCHOTTENFELD

in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

This chapter discusses the link between exogenous hormones and cancer. It focuses on estrogen and progesterone effects on tissues of the breast, endometrium, uterine cervix, ovary, and colon. All ... More

This chapter discusses the link between exogenous hormones and cancer. It focuses on estrogen and progesterone effects on tissues of the breast, endometrium, uterine cervix, ovary, and colon. All measures of association (odds ratios (ORs), relative risks (RRs), and hazard ratios (HRs)) for oral contraceptives (OCs) include women who never used OCs as the referent group. Similarly, associations for hormone therapy reflect no menopausal hormone use as the referent group.Less

Cervical Cancer

Nathalie Ylitalo, Sherri Stuver, and Hans-Olov Adami

in Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology

A persistent infection with an oncogenic HPV type is today considered a causal factor for the occurrences of cervical cancer. A number of cofactors have been identified as possible modifiers of HPV ... More

A persistent infection with an oncogenic HPV type is today considered a causal factor for the occurrences of cervical cancer. A number of cofactors have been identified as possible modifiers of HPV during the development of cervical cancer, including tobacco smoking, multiparity, OC use, and Chlamydia trachomatis infection. Because many of these factors are strongly correlated with HPV infection, it has been difficult to characterize their role in the development and progression of cervical neoplasia, as well as in the acquisition and persistence of HPV infection. Host immune control of the infection, including factors that would affect it, also may be important in HPV-induced carcinogenesis. Through a combination of public education about transmission of HPV, early detection of precursor lesions to cervical carcinoma by regular cytological screening with the incorporation of HPV testing and vaccination against certain high-risk types of HPV, carcinoma of the cervix may become one of the major forms of cancer that is most preventable on a global scale.Less

Endometrial Cancer

Immaculata Devivo, Ingemar Persson, and Hans-Olov Adami

in Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology

Endometrial cancer occurs mostly after the menopause and has an excellent prognosis. The age-standardized incidence varies at least ten-fold across countries, suggesting the strong influence of ... More

Endometrial cancer occurs mostly after the menopause and has an excellent prognosis. The age-standardized incidence varies at least ten-fold across countries, suggesting the strong influence of modifiable risk factors. Risk reduction is conferred by current smoking, past oral contraceptive use, childbearing, lower weight and, tentatively, physical activity. The most compelling evidence that hormones determine the risk of endometrial cancer comes from studies of hormone therapy following menopause. Use of estrogens alone for ten years or more increases the risk about ten-fold. This excess risk may be counteracted substantially by combined use of estrogens and progestins. Hence, it should be possible to prevent a substantial fraction of all endometrial cancers through modification of lifestyle, maintaining normal weight, optimal use of oral contraceptives and postmenopausal hormones.Less

Ovarian Cancer

Penelope Webb, Dorota Gertig, and David Hunter

in Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology

Older age and family history have strong positive associations with risk of ovarian cancer, while oral contraceptive use, increased parity, breastfeeding, and tubal ligation are inversely associated ... More

Older age and family history have strong positive associations with risk of ovarian cancer, while oral contraceptive use, increased parity, breastfeeding, and tubal ligation are inversely associated with risk. Ovarian tumors are histologically heterogeneous, resembling different epithelial surfaces of the reproductive tract. Different histologic subtypes of epithelial ovarian cancer may thus have different etiologies. The inability of many studies to stratify tumors by subtype due to insufficient numbers of cases of the less common subtypes may explain the lack of consistent findings for some risk factors among studies. There is contradictory evidence for a possible increase in risk with lactose consumption, saturated fat, and talc use and for a decrease in risk with vegetable intake, while smoking appears to increase risk of mucinous ovarian tumors only. It is unclear whether obesity and/or physical activity influence ovarian cancer risk.Less

Bodies of Evidence: Depo-Provera and the Public Board of Inquiry

in Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women's Health in the Second Wave

This chapter analyzes the 1983 U.S. Food and Drug Administration Board of Inquiry hearing held to determine whether Depo-Provera should be approved for use as a hormonal contraceptive in the United ... More

This chapter analyzes the 1983 U.S. Food and Drug Administration Board of Inquiry hearing held to determine whether Depo-Provera should be approved for use as a hormonal contraceptive in the United States. It highlights the role of women's health advocates in restructuring scientific inquiry and contraceptive regulation, and their frustration in not being able to use the individual testimonials of women who had been injected with Depo-Provera in the hearing. Their stories reveal the enormous complexity of regulating reproduction in the late twentieth century and help to explain why the women's health movement was not ultimately more successful in revolutionizing reproductive health care despite huge gains.Less

Backlash, 1973–2000

Simone M. Caron

in Who Chooses?: American Reproductive History since 1830

Government subsidies and population control advocacy of contraception and sterilization continued through the end of the twentieth century. By the year 2000 female sterilization was the most common ... More

Government subsidies and population control advocacy of contraception and sterilization continued through the end of the twentieth century. By the year 2000 female sterilization was the most common contraceptive, especially among women of color and lower economic means. The use of public funds for abortion, on the other hand, came under increasing attack. The battleground shifted from efforts to legalize abortion to organized and sometimes violent attempts to recriminalize or restrict access to it. The modern antichoice campaign resembles nineteenth-century efforts to undermine women's demands for equal rights by forcing them to revert to the traditional role of mother. While both campaigns portrayed aborting women as selfish and unnatural, few in the nineteenth century debated the legal status or personhood of the fetus. The post-Roe opposition, on the other hand, prioritized the legal and constitutional protection of the fetus over the mother. The vocal antiabortion camp led population controllers to emphasize instead sterilization and long-acting contraceptives, especially Depo Provera (DP) and Norplant, as the answer to perceived population problems. As abortion became too politically charged to promote as a cost-saving method for governments, state and federal funding dried up. Funds for sterilization and long-acting contraceptives, on the other hand, remained intact. These methods better suit the population control agenda as they are permanent, or semipermanent, and thus avoid any accidental pregnancies that indigent women could not afford to abort.Less

Teenage Sex: A Modesty Proposal

Nona Willis Aronowitz

in The Essential Ellen Willis

This chapter focuses on the debate over sex education and whether it promotes teenage sex. The liberals argue that we should concentrate on preventing pregnancy and venereal disease by giving teens ... More

This chapter focuses on the debate over sex education and whether it promotes teenage sex. The liberals argue that we should concentrate on preventing pregnancy and venereal disease by giving teens sex education, birth control, even counseling to help them “manage sex responsibly” and “have good relationships.” They assure us that giving out contraceptives “tends to make youngsters less promiscuous and not more promiscuous.” Conservatives, on the other hand, blather on about the need to provide kids with moral values. They want schools to give lectures on chastity. This chapter suggests an alternative strategy it calls “benign terrorism,” which aims to make the very idea of sex so frightening that no sane teenager could enjoy it, and offers twelve ways of implementing it.Less

Continuity or Change?: Gender Policy in the Bachelet Administration

Susan Franceschet

in The Bachelet Government: Conflict and Consensus in Post-Pinochet Chile

This chapter outlines the trajectory of three campaign promises: electoral reform and gender quotas, violence against women, and reproductive rights. The central tenet of this chapter is that ... More

This chapter outlines the trajectory of three campaign promises: electoral reform and gender quotas, violence against women, and reproductive rights. The central tenet of this chapter is that Bachelet has been ineffective in areas where the administration needs congressional approval, such as electoral reform and gender quotas, because the need to seek consensus acts as a constraint which results in policy paralysis. On the other hand, the administration has been effective in areas where the executive has the capacity to act independently, such as regulating access to contraceptives, or in areas where there is not much of a political controversy, such as in the case of violence against women. In regard to political reform, the chapter highlights the underrepresentation of women, which is due not only to long-standing political traditions, but also to the nature of the binomial electoral system.Less

Abortion

Lucas A. Powe Jr.

in America's Lone Star Constitution: How Supreme Court Cases from Texas Shape the Nation

This chapter examines Supreme Court cases that were filed over the issue of abortion in Texas. Texas figured in two of the three major decisions on abortion laws in the United States: Roe v. Wade and ... More

This chapter examines Supreme Court cases that were filed over the issue of abortion in Texas. Texas figured in two of the three major decisions on abortion laws in the United States: Roe v. Wade and Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. The late 1960s witnessed the introduction of various legislative measures to reform abortion laws. Reform measures based on the American Law Institute proposal were initiated in thirty state legislatures, including Texas in 1967. The same year the American Medical Association backed abortion liberalization, abortions were first mentioned at the Supreme Court. The chapter first discusses the case about the right of married couples to obtain contraceptives, which an 1879 Connecticut law severely restricted, and another case, Griswold v. Connecticut, the third attempt at the Court to kill the Connecticut law. It also considers cases involving Roy Lucas, Texas's mandatory sonogram bill, and Texas Senate HB 2.Less

When Persons Become Firms and Firms Become Persons: Neoliberal Jurisprudence and Evangelical Christianity in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

Wendy Brown

in Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places: Justice Beyond and Between

In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a national chain of craft stores whose Christian owners believed contraception was a sin against God could not be ... More

In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a national chain of craft stores whose Christian owners believed contraception was a sin against God could not be forced to provide their employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives. With the extension of personhood to corporations and the economizing of civic and ethical life, personhood is remade as human capital, and the field in which rights are exercised becomes a realm of the market. The decision illustrates how neoliberal jurisprudence facilitates a specific set of evangelical conservative Christian aims today and how it enables a kind of market evangelicism that pushes back against secular guarantees of equality and nondiscrimination. Hobby Lobby is one of a series of recent decisions that remakes both personhood and rights through neoliberal reason, marking a specific neoliberalization of conscience itself.Less