Women have been the objects of scientific and ethical discussions about reproductive freedom and its control for over a century. And they have increasingly endured experiments on their bodies involving ever more powerful technologies, technologies that until now have been largely generated and socially controlled by men. Here, in this study women themselves raise critical questions bout the ethics, the scientific nature, and the social context of these developments.
Reproductive Technologies: The Birth of a Women-Centered Analysis.- Ethics of Contraceptive Development and Deployment.- Historical Styles of Contraceptive Advocacy.- Ethical Problems in Government-Funded Contraceptive Research.- Value Conflicts in Biomedical Research into Future Contraceptives.- Status of Contraceptive Technology Development.- Women-Controlled Research.- Woman-Controlled Birth Control: A Feminist Analysis of Natural Birth Control.- Response.- Response.- Response.- Contraceptives Discussion.- Depo-Provera and Sterilization Abuse.- Depo-Provera and Sterilization Abuse Overview.- Depo-Provera: Some Ethical Questions about a Controversial Contraceptive.- The Depo-Provera Weapon.- Response.- Sterilization Abuse and Hispanic Women.- Concluding Remarks.- Depo-Provera and Sterilization Abuse Discussion.- Childbirth.- Childbirth Overview.- Section 1: Childbirth Technologies.- Man-Midwifery and the Rise of Technology: The Problem and Proposals for Resolution.- The Electronic Fetal Monitor in Perinatology.- Drugs, Birth, and Ethics.- Benefits and Risks of Electronic Fetal Monitoring.- Response.- Ethical Issues in Childbirth Technology.- Childbirth Technologies Discussion.- Section 2: Social Control of Childbirth.- A Report on Birth in Three Cultures.- Community Alternatives to High Technology Birth.- Contrasts in the Birthing Place: Hospital and Birth Center.- Ethical Issues Relating to Childbirth as Experienced by the Birthing Woman and Midwife.- Midwives in Many Settings.- A Native American Response.- An Obstetrician’s Perspective.- Response.- Policymaking and Projections.- Policymaking and Projections Overview.- Forces Impacting on the Policymaker.- Response.- C/SEC: A Special-Interest Interpersonal Group Brings about Change.- The Ethicist in Policymaking.-Appendix: Action Possibilities, Margaret A. Kohn.- Notes and References.- Biographies.