The Politics of Fertility Treatment in 20th-century Britain (360G-Wellcome-210281_Z_18_Z)

Through Family Planning Association and associated archives held at the Wellcome, I will map historical medical provision for infertility at the local level and explore what the provision (or lack thereof) of infertility treatment reveals about the changing relationship between individuals, family, and the state in modern Britain. I will explore to what extent the state viewed infertility as a problem affecting the body politic versus a personal problem affecting individuals in the private family sphere, and how this has changed over time; what arguments about the availability and entitlement to infertility treatment as part of a nationally-subsidized or state-run health system can tell us about conceptions of individual rights and notions of "worthiness"; how debates over the state-provision of infertility treatments have been gendered, racialized, or approached from the perspective of class or eugenics; and what this can tell us about British political culture and society more broadly. This pilot research will be written up in academic journals and act as a springboard to an Investigator Award into the political history of fertility treatment, the results of which will both improve our understanding of the historical evolution of contemporary debates and help to shape current and future health policy.