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Fit to Be Tied
Price: $45.95
Subtitle:
Sterilization and
Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980
Author:
Rebecca M. Kluchin
Subject: Medicine,
Women's
Studies, History
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4527-1
Pages:
304 pages
Publication Date: June 2009
Series:
Critical
Issues in Health and Medicine
Praise for Fit to Be Tied
"Kluchin should be congratulated for her highly readable,
well-researched study of this important, but largely neglected aspect
of postwar women’s health history. This book makes a valuable
contribution to the literature on women’s studies, social policy, and
the history of medicine and public health."-Molly Ladd-Taylor, York
University
Description:
The 1960s revolutionized American
contraceptive practice. Diaphragms, jellies, and condoms with high
failure rates gave way to newer choices of the Pill, IUD, and
sterilization. Fit to Be Tied
provides a history of sterilization and what would prove to become, at
once, socially divisive and a popular form of birth control.
During the first half of the twentieth
century, sterilization (tubal ligation and vasectomy) was a tool of
eugenics. Individuals who endorsed crude notions of biological
determinism sought to control the reproductive decisions of women they
considered “unfit” by nature of race or class, and used surgery to do
so. Incorporating first-person narratives, court cases, and official
records, Rebecca M. Kluchin examines the evolution of forced
sterilization of poor women, especially women of color, in the second
half of the century and contrasts it with demands for contraceptive
sterilization made by white women and men. She chronicles public
acceptance during an era of reproductive and sexual freedom, and the
subsequent replacement of the eugenics movement with “neo-eugenic”
standards that continued to influence American medical practice, family
planning, public policy, and popular sentiment.
Relevant Links
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About the Authors:
Rebecca M. Kluchin
is an assistant professor of history at California State University,
Sacramento.
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Price: $45.95
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