Modern Reproductions: Women, Biology, and History (book reviews)

Recent political tempests in the United States serve as vivid reminders that biology is often inextricably bound up with social, cultural, and political meanings—especially, it seems, where women’s reproductive systems are concerned. Incomplete and disputed scientific understandings of the complex processes involved in human procreation leave ample space for vying significations among the lay public. Examining the particular character of social and cultural contests over female reproduction, therefore, may reveal deeper tensions within a given society. Three recent books about the twentieth-century United States provide compelling illustrations of how societal anxieties in times of profound change were expressed through public discourses about how women’s reproductive systems can and should be controlled, and who should control them.