Without contraception, a healthy, sexually active woman will give birth to about 15 children and over her life span, spend most of her reproductive years either pregnant or nursing a newborn infant. So controlling fertility has preoccupied women—and often their husbands—since at least 1000 B.C.
In this comprehensive reference, readers can explore the history of birth control from a variety of perspectives: anthropological, biological, economic, feminist, medical, political, and psychological. From wet nurses to chastity belts, from animal-dung contraceptives to the Dalkon Shield, readers will learn how women have attempted birth control, contraception, and abortion throughout history and throughout the world. Readers will also discover why opposition to birth control was so fierce early in the 20th century that many American women and men were jailed for disseminating information on avoiding pregnancy, and why family planning remains hotly controversial almost a century later.