Embryo Project Encyclopedia Articles

The Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, hereafter Union or CWLU, was a feminist union that operated in Chicago, Illinois, from 1969 to 1977 and was the first and largest union, at the time of its operation, focused on women’s issues. The Union organized women with the self-proclaimed collective goal of achieving liberation from sexism and inequality. Within the larger CWLU, smaller groups and chapters formed to address issues such as abortion, rape, child care, and reproductive health, among others. During CWLU’s eight years of operation, the activists circulated petitions, held demonstrations, and visited high schools to raise public awareness of women’s issues. The CWLU created educational opportunities for women in response to apparent sexism in the US and connected them to social groups to further the women’s liberation movement and women’s reproductive health awareness in the United States.

NovaSure is a device for endometrial ablation, which is a procedure that removes the endometrium, that the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, approved for use on 28 September 2001. Endometrium is the tissue that lines the uterus. NovaSure destroys the endometrium by sending electric beams at the endometrium. Hologic, a medical technology company concerned with women’s health, developed NovaSure to treat menorrhagia, or heavy bleeding during menstruation. Menorrhagia is a common symptom of endometriosis. Endometriosis is the growth of the endometrium outside of the uterus. While NovaSure is not a treatment that doctors use to directly treat endometriosis, the procedure may help alleviate heavy bleeding during menstruation, which may improve a patient’s quality of life as heavy menstrual bleeding is often associated with high levels of anxiety and low levels of confidence.

The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective was a women’s health organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, that published the informational book Our Bodies Ourselves, which sold over 4.5 million copies. Initially called the Doctor’s Group, the Collective formed in response to the insufficiency of women-specific health information during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Members of the organization participated in the women’s liberation movement in Boston, Massachusetts, and conducted research on women’s health using resources such as medical textbooks. They collectively created an original publication surrounding women’s health concerns and offered educational courses for women to learn more about their bodies and to share their experiences. The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, later called Our Bodies Ourselves, expanded access to women’s health information throughout the world with their publications, courses, and outreach.

The United States Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, published 'General Considerations for the Clinical Evaluation of Drugs,' in September 1977. The document defined acceptable practices for investigators who studied new drugs. Specifically, the document outlined the common clinical trial methods. Clinical trials are studies to test whether a new drug is safe before doctors can prescribe it to patients. Prior to 1977, the Protection of Human Subjects Rule primarily regulated clinical drug trials, but it did not specify who could and could not be included in clinical trials. In the document, the FDA recommended that anyone who could become pregnant be excluded from early-phase clinical trials to minimize risks to a potential fetus. After the FDA published the document, investigators excluded women from clinical trials. The document ultimately prevented women of reproductive capacity from participating in early phase clinical trials, which affected women’s health research.

Charles Knowlton was a physician and author who advocated for increased access to information about reproduction in the nineteenth century in the US. Throughout his early medical education, Knowlton was particularly interested in anatomy and on several instances robbed graves for bodies to dissect. In 1832, Knowlton authored The Fruits of Philosophy, a pamphlet that contained detailed descriptions of the reproductive organs and information on conception and methods to control reproduction. Knowlton circulated his work among his patients until it was republished in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1832. For publishing a book on sex and methods of birth control, Knowlton was convicted of breaking obscenity laws, which prevented the transmission of obscene materials. After his death, social activists Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant republished his work in London, England. Knowlton’s writing about sex and birth control allowed individuals to understand and take control of their reproduction and initiated a public discussion about obscenity laws.

In 1973, Ronald Ericsson developed the Ericsson method, which is a technique used to separate human male sperm cells by their genetic material. Ericsson, a physician and reproduction researcher, developed the method while conducting research on sperm isolation in Berlin, Germany, in the early 1970s. He found that the sperm cells that carry male-producing Y chromosomes move through liquid faster than the cells that carry female-producing X chromosomes. As a result of his findings, Ericsson suggested suspending a semen sample in a viscous liquid made from albumin protein, and collecting only sperm that quickly pass through the liquid. Shortly after Ericsson described his method, researchers demonstrated that it was effective for sex selection. However, later studies contested those results. Despite that, the Ericsson method is still utilized by couples in 2018 as a means of sex selection and was the first sperm separation technique used in combination with artificial insemination to enable people to select the sex of their children.

Torsten Nils Wiesel studied visual information processing and development in the US during the twentieth century. He performed multiple experiments on cats in which he sewed one of their eyes shut and monitored the response of the cat’s visual system after opening the sutured eye. For his work on visual processing, Wiesel received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1981 along with David Hubel and Roger Sperry. Wiesel determined the critical period during which the visual system of a mammal develops and studied how impairment at that stage of development can cause permanent damage to the neural pathways of the eye, allowing later researchers and surgeons to study the treatment of congenital vision disorders.

In 1993, the NIH published the Revitalization Act that established guidelines for minorities’ and women’s participation in clinical research. Before the 1990s, investigators largely excluded women from their research based on the 1979 guidance from the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA. The FDA urged investigators to exclude any woman who was or could become, pregnant to protect the woman and any developing fetuses from harm. Between 1979 and 1993, several other US governmental agencies urged investigators to increase the number of women in their clinical research to improve the state of women’s healthcare. After Congress passed the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, hereafter Revitalization Act of 1993, investigators who used NIH funds for clinical research were required to include both women and minorities in their clinical research. The Revitalization Act established the Office of Research on Women’s Health headquartered in Washington, DC and required investigators to include women in their clinical research, thus improving the quality of women’s health research.

Annie Wood Besant was a social activist who advocated for women’s access to birth control as well as marriage reform, labor reform, and Indian Nationalism in the nineteenth century in England and India. In her early career, Besant was involved in various social and political advocacy organizations including the National Secular Society, the Malthusian League, and the Fabian Society. Besant gave many public lectures and authored various articles in support of secularism, workers’ rights and unionization, and women’s rights. In 1877, Besant and her colleague Charles Bradlaugh republished the pamphlet The Fruits of Philosophy, by Charles Knowlton, on reproduction and contraception. Besant and Bradlaugh were tried for violating the obscenity law that prohibited the publication of obscene material, including sex and contraception. Later in her life, she converted to theosophy and moved to India where she joined the Theosophical Society. In India, Besant campaigned for Indian self-rule and became the president of the Indian National Congress. Besant, through republication of The Fruits of Philosophy and many public lectures and writings on women’s rights, expanded public knowledge of birth control.

Charles Bradlaugh was as a political and social activist in the seventeenth century in England. He held leadership positions in various organizations focused on social and political activism including the Reform League, the London Secular Society, the newspaper National Reformer, and the National Secular Society. Throughout his career, Bradlaugh advocated for better conditions for the working poor, and for the separation of government and religion. The British government prosecuted him numerous times for violating laws prohibiting the publication, sale, and transmission of antireligious, antigovernment, and obscene materials. In 1877, Bradlaugh and another secularist, Annie Besant, republished The Fruits of Philosophy, a pamphlet about contraceptive techniques originally whose author was physician Charles Knowlton. In the nineteenth century, individuals did not have access to information on sex, reproduction, and contraception, as much of society argued such information encouraged immoral behavior. Bradlaugh and Besant were tried for publishing information on sexual anatomy, conception, and methods to control reproduction. Bradlaugh expanded public knowledge of reproduction and contraception, and initiated the process of dismantling the obscenity laws.