| Artificial insemination and eugenics: celibate motherhood, eutelegenesis and germinal choice. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 18534352 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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This paper traces the history of artificial insemination by selected donors (AID) as a strategy for positive eugenic improvement. While medical artificial insemination has a longer history, its use as a eugenic strategy was first mooted in late nineteenth-century France. It was then developed as 'scientific motherhood' for war widows and those without partners by Marion Louisa Piddington in Australia following the Great War. By the 1930s AID was being more widely used clinically in Britain (and elsewhere) as a medical solution to male infertility for married couples. In 1935 English postal clerk, Herbert Brewer, promoted AID (eutelegenesis) as the socialization of the germ plasm in a eugenic scheme. The next year Hermann Muller, American Drosophila geneticist and eugenicist, presented his plan for human improvement by AID to Stalin. Some twenty years later, Muller, together with Robert Klark Graham, began planning a Foundation for Germinal Choice in California. This was finally opened in 1980 as the first practical experiment in eugenic AID, producing some 215 babies over the twenty years it functioned. While AID appeared to be a means of squaring a eugenic circle by separating paternity from love relationships, and so allowing eugenic improvement without inhibiting individual choice in marriage, it found very little favour with those who might use it, not least because of a couple's desire to have their 'own' children has always seemed stronger than any eugenic aspirations. No state has ever contemplated using AID as a social policy. |
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Authors:
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Martin Richards |
Publication Detail:
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Type: Historical Article; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Date: 2008-05-16 |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Studies in history and philosophy of biological and biomedical sciences Volume: 39 ISSN: 1369-8486 ISO Abbreviation: Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci Publication Date: 2008 Jun |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2008-06-06 Completed Date: 2008-11-14 Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 9810965 Medline TA: Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci Country: England |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 211-21 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
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Centre for Family Research, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Free School Lane, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3RF, UK. mpmr@cam.ac.uk |
Export Citation:
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| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
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Australia California Choice Behavior Cloning, Organism Ethics, Medical Eugenics / history* France Genetic Enhancement / history* Genetics, Medical Great Britain History, 20th Century Humans Insemination, Artificial / history* Politics* Reproductive Techniques, Assisted Sexual Abstinence* |
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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