The Pursuit of Parenthood: Reproductive Technology from Test-Tube Babies to Uterus Transplants PDF
Preview The Pursuit of Parenthood: Reproductive Technology from Test-Tube Babies to Uterus Transplants
T H E P U R S U I T O F P A R E N T H O O D 9781421429847_Marsh_Parenthood.indb 1 5/7/19 8:59 AM This page intentionally left blank Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner T H E T H E P U R S U I T O F REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY P U R S U I T O F P A R E N T H O O D FROM TEST-TUBE BABIES RePproducAtive TeRchnoloEgy fromN Test- TTube BHabies Oto UterOus TranDsplants TO UTERUS TRANSPLANTS Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS BALTIMORE 9781421429847_Marsh_Parenthood.indb 3 5/7/19 8:59 AM © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2019 Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Marsh, Margaret S., 1945– author. | Ronner, Wanda, author. Title: The pursuit of parenthood : reproductive technology from test- tube babies to uterus transplants / Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner. Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018048633 | ISBN 9781421429847 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 1421429845 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781421429854 (electronic) | ISBN 1421429853 (electronic) Subjects: | MESH: Fertilization in Vitro—history | Reproductive Techniques, Assisted—history | Infertility—history | Infertility—therapy | Reproductive Medicine—history | Health Policy | United States Classification: LCC RG135 | NLM WQ 11 AA1 | DDC 618.1/780599—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048633 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected]. Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post- consumer waste, whenever possible. 9781421429847_Marsh_Parenthood.indb 4 5/7/19 8:59 AM For our dear friends Maryellen and John Alviti, who have shared so much of our lives 9781421429847_Marsh_Parenthood.indb 5 5/7/19 8:59 AM This page intentionally left blank C O N T E N T S Preface ix Introduction: The Past as Prologue 1 1 Test- Tube Babies Just around the Corner 11 2 From First Dream to First Baby 31 3 IVF Comes to America 53 4 From Miracle Births to Medical Mainstream 78 5 The Elusive Search for National Consensus 102 6 A Lot of Money Being Made 121 7 Beyond Infertility 146 8 Can the Wild West of Reproductive Medicine Be Tamed? 184 Appendix: Assisted Reproductive Technologies by (Some of) the Numbers 213 Acknowledgments 221 Notes 227 Index 265 9781421429847_Marsh_Parenthood.indb 7 5/7/19 8:59 AM This page intentionally left blank P R E FA C E People have been known to introduce us at conferences as the infertility sisters. Margaret is a historian of women with a special interest in gender and the family; Wanda is a gynecologist. For nearly three decades now, the two of us have been thinking, talking, and writing about the history of infer- tility, reproductive medicine, and reproductive sexuality. And we really are sisters. We never imagined that our collaboration would span our careers when we started out, oh so casually, in 1988. Wanda had just returned to Philadelphia to practice after she completed her residency. At the time, Mar- garet was close to finishing her second book, and Wanda said, “Why don’t we do a little project in the history of gynecology? Maybe a talk, or a paper?” We had always been interested in each other’s work, and we both thought it would be interesting to merge our two disciplines into a joint project. That “little project” ended up becoming The Empty Cradle: Infertility in America from Colonial Times to the Present. That first book led before long to our second, The Fertility Doctor: John Rock and the Reproductive Revolution, which explored the development of the field of reproductive medicine through the life and career of one of the most prominent infertility specialists of the mid- twentieth century, a man who later became famous as the co- developer of the oral contraceptive. After spending so many years thinking about these subjects, how could we not want to bring our unique perspective to the late twentieth- century transformation in reproductive medicine and technology? In vitro fertiliza- tion—the creation of embryos outside a woman’s body—did more than al- low women with certain diagnoses of infertility to conceive. It also made ix 9781421429847_Marsh_Parenthood.indb 9 5/7/19 8:59 AM
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