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Reproductive Technologies - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Noting also that where regulations or movements to regulate reproductive technologies are concerned, they can either be: (1) top-down or (2) grassroots
      - A cautious side-note
        
        'Embodied' in a Latourian sense suggests that something has AGENCY; that the technology can create the inequalities itself (eg. maybe a technology is suitable only for certain people bc of its technical nature)
        
        So be careful when you use 'embodied' --> make sure you want to convey that some tech has agency, before actually using it (embodied is an active sort of word)
  - - - Just some clarification on determinist, structuralist and constructivist:
        
        Determinist: Gender = Noun (something that we biologically ARE)
        
        Structuralist: Gender = Adjective (we can describe gender using adjectives; eg. men = brave, decisive...)
        
        Constructivist: Gender = verb (gender as something we PERFORM; eg. males trying to exert/assert control over women)
- - - - Role of Men and Women
        
        Historically, women acted as the midwives to deliver the babies, male surgeons only called in during emergencies
        
        1720 - 1770: Changes such that male surgeons became the ones delivering the babies
        
        How technologies, like the obstetric forceps, enabled the transition to man-midwifery (James Aveling makes this argument; this supports technological determinism
        
        Employing these technologies as a sign/call for midwives to improve their technical skills?
        
        L1 Fissell
        
        Argues against Aveling's technological determinism thesis, by trying to frame midwifery as an economic activity shaped by larger shifts in the workforce
        
        Man-midwives were seen as more 'interventionist' and had more technical knowledge, so were seen as better suited for the job?
        
        A desire to improve childbirth outcomes, combined with this perception that man-midwives were more competent, could account for the shift? (that the changes, perhaps pre-dated the obstetrics forceps)
        
        L1 Wilson (2)
        
        Argues that the forceps was not the fundamental instrument that caused the shift towards the lying-in hospital and man-midwifery (so, against Aveling too)
        
        Forceps changed perceptions of the male surgeons (because they now delivered live babies too) --> Enabled their roles to expand, while the roles of women contracted (especially since they were more 'skilled' and successful)
        
        But, fundamentally, had little effect in radically transforming the division of labour in childbearing
        
        L1 Wilson
        
        Discusses the division of labour between male surgeons and midwives in C16 and C17 Britain, noting that childbearing was a gendered process where male practitioners were only called in emergencies
        
        Only men used tools because only they were technically trained. This also shaped fears about the male practitioners, because they were only called when the baby/woman was in danger
        
        This division was transcended with the emergence of the Chamberlen family's secret technologies (forceps, the Vectis and the fillet)
      - C20: Hospital Births
        
        Rationale for Transition
        
        Ability/advent of key technologies of pain relief
        
        Better nutrition, drugs/antibiotics and decreased infant morality rate?
        
        Hospitals as a symbol of trust; women would be 'safe' when they gave birth there
        
        Resistance/Campaigns
        
        Some argued that hospital birth made the process like 'an assembly line'
        
        Also, resistance towards synthetic pain relief, in favour of natural pain relief (Lamaze)
        
        Could the emergence of women as obstetricians and gynaecologists alleviate/overcome this resistance?
        
        L1 Gailani
        
        Accounts for the shift towards hospital births in the interwar and postwar periods of the C20
        
        Shift occurred because: (1) new technologies (pain relief, chloroform, anaesthesia) could only be administered in hospitals (2) Sanitary conditions were good in hospitals (Ignaz Semmelweis and hand-washing) and (3) Urbanisation and shifting roles of women made it harder to conduct childbearing at home
        
        Also notes the 1960s birth wars: Women liberation movement wanted women to have control, choice and agency over their delivery options
        
        Globalisation
        
        If we recognise that C20 hospital births = European modernity, we start thinking about how this modernity was felt globally
        
        Nancy Rose Hunt on Belgian Congo: How hospitals were promoted through missionary hospitals
        
        Cecilia Van Hollen on India in the 1990s: Why women wanted to be induced, but were also resistant to painkillers
        
        This is a call to think about varying practices of childbirth/childbearing in different places! (and why such variations occurred)
        
        L1 Ahn: Childbearing and Lamaze in Maoist China
        
        China's search for an alternative modernity; its adoption of PPMD reflected the CCP's ideological tensions and self-contradiction
        
        It emerged because PPMD was a Soviet model, so could encourage moving away from Western medicine (which was frowned upon for being bourgeois)
        
        However, CCP's exaggeration of the effects and uses of the PPMD took it out of context of Soviet usage, and was used to show how socialism removed the pain of the masses
        --> Declined after the 1959 Sino-Soviet split
        
        Good connections:
        
        P6 (Sci and Communism): Thinking about how it fits in with Mao's emphasis on struggles (struggle with nature of childbearing in this case)
        
        Also P2: Sino-Soviet split's effect on s/t methods/ideas in East Asia
  - - - Lennart Nilsson's 1965 Drama of Life Before Birth
        
        Sweden had a liberal law (allowed collaboration with anti-abortion gynaecologists)
        
        COLOURED images to make the foetus seem ALIVE ('human' depiction)
        
        Thereby giving rise to new features of the foetus and evidence for pro-lifers (you can compare this with the Apollo space mission and pictures of the Earth from space, in terms of their effect
        
        L3 Julich
        
        Explores the intersection between Nilsson's photograph, new media, and participatory practices in the 1960s-70s, showing how Nilsson's work was appropriated by various groups for their needs
        
        To understand Marshall McLuhan's theory of media!
        
        --> Hot media: Reader not as involved (eg. photography)
        --> Cool media: more involvement, less description (eg. TV)
        --> For Luhan, the medium is what matters, not the message!
        
        the circulation of Nilsson's work is actually not dependent on the medium, because his photographs/messages were easily adapted into different forms of media for sexual education in Sweden, and also by antiabortionists
    - - Obstetric Ultrasound
        
        Origins (1955)
        
        Seeing with sound (done by a team, led by Ian Donald)
        
        Mainly in Industrial Glasgow, which allowed them to tap on the rich expertise in engineering
        
        Inspiration was the fact that sound could be used to see inside metal (detect flaws)
        
        Usage In Pregnancy
        
        By the 1980s, it was part of the routine inspection procedure
        
        Seeing the baby: an extraordinary bonding/intiamte experience for the mother --> It fulfilled what Donald envisioned (clinical holism
        
        The Prenatal Paradox
        
        Ultrasound helped to visualise and bring the foetus to LIFE
        
        But, it was also used to show when the mother should terminate the foetus' life (when the scans detected rare abnormalities)
        
        L3 Lowy
        
        Argues that these diagnosis technologies ironically made pregnancy a more stressful environment/procedure for mothers
        --> Consider ultrasound, amniocentesis, study of human chromosomes (Down syndrome) and markers of foetal anomalies
        
        Legalisation of abortion can be viewed as a recognition of the fact that birth defects was actually a public health problem
        
        But for mothers, the issue is that by doing a simple 'test', they receive confusing/complex technical information that makes their decisions about the pregnancy very complicated!
    - - The US
        
        1960s: Thalidomide, rubella etc. spurred feminist movements arguing that abortion was a woman's right
        
        Environmentalists too believed that birth control was a DUTY/NECESSITY to prevent overpopulation
        
        Roe v Wade 1973: Struck down all state anti-abortion laws as unconstitutional
      - Think about how the visual culture helped to fuel anti-abortion campaigns, providing means to argue that the foetus is indeed a living being
      - L3 Hopwood and Johnson
        
        Explore history of states controlling reproductive technologies and trying to control what the 'family' is
        
        C19: Criminalisation of abortion (medical professionals campaigned against abortion)
        
        C20: Work of feminist movements, fears of overpopulation.. all coupled together to create the environment to de-criminalise abortion
        
        Neoliberalism: A move to decrease/keep the power of medical authorities in-check, and decrease state intervention!
        
        Again, one can think about the relationship of this abortion campaigns/movements with neoliberalism? (P6 Sci and Activism)
  - - - In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)
        
        Origins
        
        Walter Heape: Embryo transfer in rabbits
        
        Jacques Loeb: Parthenogenesis in sea urchins
        
        John Rock 1937: Proposed the idea of 'conception in a watch-glass'
        
        1959: Min Chueh Chang succeeded IVF in rabbits
        
        From Animals to Humans
        
        Landrum Shettles and Robert Edwards 1969: Showed the early stages of in vitro fertilisation of human oocytes!
        
        Working with the Oldham Programme after a grant application was rejected in 1971 by MRC because of negative publicity/perception!
        
        1978: Louise Brown is born
        
        Before IVF, most reproductive technologies focussed on preventing childbirth (so you see in L4 Benninghaus there was difficulty in trying to help people overcome infertility)
      - Responses and Impacts
        
        An uplifting story about how technology overcame natural infertuility issues
        
        A technomedical adventure of HOPE
        
        Feminists were sceptical, arguing that such technologies imposed stresses on women
        
        --> Debates: Issues of success (cost, regulations etc.)
      - L4 Hopwood
        
        Explores the history and impacts of various technologies of artificial fertilisation, noting that artificial insemination stretches back to C14
        
        Increased prominence in C20 due to the faith in power of medical interventions and also increased scientific knowledge about menstrual cycle
        
        IVF and the creation of a new industry with new moral, philosophical and ethical issues
        
        Changing the natural/artifical distinction in reproduction!
      - L4 Wahlberg
        
        Interesting case study of how China became the world's largest IVF industry, DESPITE the strict 1-child policy
        
        Argues that Chinese scientists introduced IVF in a form that conveyed useful meanings/functions in its political context, so it became yet another technology of birth control
        
        ARTs was conceptualised as a way to improve the Chinese population's quality (1983 policy of Superior Births)
        
        IVF was promoted to HELP infertile couples and show that people had the need for it urgently --> Controlled population growth, improved population quality
        
        I would think this is the clearest case study of how society gives meaning and function to technology, rather than subscribing to the technological determinism thesis. This is a good case of showing how technologies have different meanings in different places/political contexts!
    - - Key Issues
        
        Eugenic anxieties: Adoption of 'high quality' children?
        
        Using technology/statistical methods to sustain the illusion that the families were 'natural' --> Reinforcing the preference of biological families!
        
        L4 Herman
        
        Explores how scientists made adoption a scientific enterprise by trying to match children to parents scientifically (the work of Arnold Gesell)
        
        How science and scientists tried to develop more scientific means of adoption to overcome issues of equality etc.)
        
        Development of the Gesell Scale as a means to standardise measurements of child development, and Gesell envisioned its use to measure risks of adoption and avoid over/under placement
        
        It became a form of scientific warranty to parents, but also exacerbated class equality issues
- - - - L2 Tone
        
        Argues that the condom exemplified changing attitudes and strategies in the American birth control industry, and also public attitudes towards health
        
        Historical resistance and criminalisation of condoms/the industry by the government; but rise of VD made the industry flourish after 1918
        
        There is a strong case made for technological determinism, because Tone is arguing that the condom shaped social ideologies of gender: The condom undermined female empowerment, placed women at the mercy of frivolous, reckless men
    - - The Contraceptive Pill
        
        Gender: Why Women
        
        Biological determinists: Because women have babies, reproduction efforts should centre on them (also culturally)
        
        Structural inequalities in industries and sociotechnical networks made it easier to develop a pill for women too
        
        Making the Pill
        
        Endocrinology
        
        Sciences of women was well-established and organised around the ovaries, but no such thing for men
        
        Female sex hormones: already, there was a wide network/market, aided by gynaecology clinics! It became easy to gain access to the extracts of the female sex hormones c.f. men
        
        L2 Oudshoorn: Measuring Sex Hormones
        
        Explains why in the 1920s, laboratory scientists dominated the study of sex hormones OVER clinicians
        
        Development of laboratory assaying methods to measure and standardise the hormones (finding ways to express potency of the drug)
        
        Laboratory methods re-defined meanings of gender and made sex hormones technical
        
        L2 Oudshoorn (Making Sex Hormones)
        
        Validates the idea that scientists construct knowledge by forming networks OUTSIDE of the lab (scientist-pharmaceutical industry alliance)
        
        Researchers needed ovaries and testes, which pharmaecetucial companies could easily provide
        
        This juncture also explains the dominance of the female sex hormone over the male: the male sex hormone couldn't be easily extracted from urine! it required synthetic pathways to produce.
        --> The gynaecology-laboratory-pharma alliance pushed the female sex hormone to the forefront of reproductive research!
        
        L2 Oudshoorn: Marketing Sex Hormones
        
        Argues that marketing of sex hormones and hormone therapy was profoundly shaped by cultural and institutional factors
        
        Organon's clinical trials helped it gain information about its product, and helped them understand how to market its therapeutic value
        
        In comparison, they didn't have these opportunities for the male sex hormone drug, because there was no institutional context for clinical trials and its applicability was limited (social taboos of andropause)
        
        Impacts and Legacies of the Pill
        
        Resistance from Women
        
        Concerns of side-effects
        
        Became another way of showing that women were mere guinea pigs in medical experiments, and that they had been robbed of agency/choice by doctors
        
        Did the pill cause the sexual revolution?
        Did it help to liberate middle and working-class women?
        --> These are questions one would ask in terms of technological determinism too!
        
        Development
        
        Sanger, Pincus and Dexter McCormick --> First looked at ovulation in rabbits
        
        Found natural extracts of the hormones, conducted a field trial in Puerto Rico (lower barriers for field trials)
        
        1957: Enovid by Searle put on the American market, marketed as treating menasutral disorders rather than as contraceptives
    - - L2 Oudshoorn (1-size-fits-all)
        
        Argues that paradigm for reproductive technologies has moved from 1-size-fits-all to a cafeteria discourse, and these changes arose because of epistemological and socio-political changes, not scientific progress
        
        OSFAP promotes the idea that contraception is universal and reduced women to mere menstraul cycles (like the Puerto Rico field trials)
        
        Cafertia discourse allows women to have more freedom of choice
      - L2 Watkins
        
        Argues that the Norplant technology was rejected because of user decisions, rather than the meanings constructed by experts and providers (user-developer divide)
        
        Norplant: Implantation that released progesterone over 5 years (so women didn't need medical intervention after inserting it)
        
        Fatal assumptions made by the developers regarding why women didn't want to use contraceptives. Also, capitalism made this a tool that the poor couldn't afford. And also, many side-effects
        
        The users were the ones who held the power to reject this technology (cafertia discourse)
      - A sidenote on laparoscopy
        
        Laparoscopy is fundamental to the development of IVF, as in 1978, it was the only way you could retrieve eggs
        
        Laparoscopy in itself is the surgical procedure of making an incision and viewing inside the abdomen
        
        Laparoscopy STERILISATION is the contraceptive
  - - - BIOPOWER: Where issues of individual sexual/reproductive choices become connected with issues of national policy, and state power/geopolitics!
      - Neo-Malthusians promote a more pessimistic view on population control
        
        While Malthus suggests that the population size would 'naturally' be checked, Neo-Malthusian encourage ACTIVE interventions on production growth
    - - L2 Olszynko-Gryn (Laparoscopy sterilisation in India)
        
        Explores how sterilisation and laparoscopy gained traction in India because of its population emergency
        
        Laparoscopy: An American invention which found endurance/relevance in the local contexts of patriarchal India
        
        Shows how the technology disempowered women severely, treated them like machines, de-humanised them, disregarded human dignity, and cast the women as passive victims of technology!
  - - - PRC and other communist regime's also did not use the pill, but chose IUDs and abortions