Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’

This chapter will explore how the infertile patient was characterized, perceived, and treated by the medical profession in 1950s England and Scotland. Such was the concern that this subject engendered in postwar Britain that a Departmental Committee was appointed in 1958 (known as the Feversham Comm...

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Prif Awdur: Davis, Gayle
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author Davis, Gayle
author_browse Davis, Gayle
author_facet Davis, Gayle
author_sort Davis, Gayle
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description This chapter will explore how the infertile patient was characterized, perceived, and treated by the medical profession in 1950s England and Scotland. Such was the concern that this subject engendered in postwar Britain that a Departmental Committee was appointed in 1958 (known as the Feversham Committee) to investigate infertility and its treatment through artificial insemination. The written and oral evidence submitted by medical witnesses to that Committee offers rich insights into medical thinking and practice, and into the complex sociomedical politics and ethical anxieties which surrounded the topic. The testimony of legal and religious witnesses will also be explored to a more limited extent in order to offer some context to medical understandings and treatments of infertility. It will be considered how women’s bodies, personalities, and even agency in proactively seeking motherhood through artificial insemination were heavily pathologized in medical and religious discourses, but also how the men involved – husbands, sperm donors and even doctors – did not escape this tendency to pathologize.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-707012025-08-13T14:12:03Z Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’ Davis, Gayle Artificial insemination, Doctors, Infertility, Pathologization, Religion thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization This chapter will explore how the infertile patient was characterized, perceived, and treated by the medical profession in 1950s England and Scotland. Such was the concern that this subject engendered in postwar Britain that a Departmental Committee was appointed in 1958 (known as the Feversham Committee) to investigate infertility and its treatment through artificial insemination. The written and oral evidence submitted by medical witnesses to that Committee offers rich insights into medical thinking and practice, and into the complex sociomedical politics and ethical anxieties which surrounded the topic. The testimony of legal and religious witnesses will also be explored to a more limited extent in order to offer some context to medical understandings and treatments of infertility. It will be considered how women’s bodies, personalities, and even agency in proactively seeking motherhood through artificial insemination were heavily pathologized in medical and religious discourses, but also how the men involved – husbands, sperm donors and even doctors – did not escape this tendency to pathologize. 2021-06-08T02:01:43Z 2021-06-08T02:01:43Z 2021-06-07T13:01:28Z 2017 chapter https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49429 9781137520791 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/70701 eng open access image/jpeg image/jpeg Attribution 4.0 International Attribution 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/49429/1/Bookshelf_NBK525072.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/49429/1/Bookshelf_NBK525072.pdf Springer Nature 10.1057/978-1-137-52080-7_19 10.1057/978-1-137-52080-7_19 9fa3421d-f917-4153-b9ab-fc337c396b5a The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History Wellcome Trust d859fbd3-d884-4090-a0ec-baf821c9abfd 9781137520791 Wellcome 24 London open access
spellingShingle Artificial insemination, Doctors, Infertility, Pathologization, Religion
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization
Davis, Gayle
Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’
title Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’
title_full Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’
title_fullStr Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’
title_full_unstemmed Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’
title_short Chapter 19 ‘A Tragedy as Old as History’
title_sort chapter 19 a tragedy as old as history
topic Artificial insemination, Doctors, Infertility, Pathologization, Religion
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization
topic_facet Artificial insemination, Doctors, Infertility, Pathologization, Religion
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MF Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences::MFK Human reproduction, growth and development::MFKC Reproductive medicine::MFKC1 Infertility and fertilization
url https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49429
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