Sex, Science, Society, and Reproduction: "The Pill" that changed America

By Barry Verkauf

We all tend to get involved in our work, put our noses down, try to do it diligently, and are sometimes not aware of what is happening around us. Often what is happening around us influences our work, and clearly our work sometimes influences what is happening around us. By reviewing the history of contraception and its inverse--infertility, app

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649900364

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

We all tend to get involved in our work, put our noses down, try to do it diligently, and are sometimes not aware of what is happening around us. Often what is happening around us influences our work, and clearly our work sometimes influences what is happening around us. By reviewing the history of contraception and its inverse–infertility, appreciating recent advances in them and potential future ones, and by gaining heightened awareness of societal changes as they relate to family, work, economics, and reproduction which have occurred over the last 50 years, we will understand that though science and society have their own determinants of change, they can interdigitate and impact each other. This book describes an example of this. Sex is at the center of it all.

CHAPTER 1

THE BEGINNINGS

Sixty years ago, talking about sex in mixed company was simply not acceptable, but sex is everywhere today! It is on TV, it is in movies, and it is in much of our discourse; however, I was a little bit surprised when I went downtown to the Straz Performing Arts Center recently in Tampa, FL and saw this advertisement for the next opera, Romeo and Juliet.

(FIG 1)

I then opened the South Tampa News and noticed the advertisement for a new plastic surgeon moving into town. (FIG 2)

(FIG 2)

Not that I don't think sex is important! For most people sex is highly enjoyable and it is certainly a way of expressing intimacy and meaningfulness to another person. However, probably its' greatest significance on earth has to do with reproducing our species. We really do not know exactly how life on earth began. There is no unanimity of opinion about that. Those who are religious accept the creationist view, the Biblical view, where God created animals and Man from dust in the Garden of Eden. Apparently, Adam was not satisfied so God created Eve out of Adam's rib. He made Eve to look like Adam except for certain differences between them, which you are aware of in those areas which came to be known as reproductive organs! ¹ In the Bible it says that God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. I am not certain whether God gave them a handbook or they figured it out on their own, but they did as God directed.²

During the Age of the Enlightenment, people started taking a different view of how life evolved. Charles Darwin was not the first to think about it, but in 1859 in his book On the Origin of Species³, he published his observations and codified the fact that it seemed one species evolved from another. He suggested that the changes which occurred in each species were adaptations to the environment and necessary to endure changes which were occurring in the world or in the region of that species. Thus, we have the phrase the survival of the fittest and natural selection in science has come to be the accepted way by which life evolved on earth, probably from a single cell made up of substances which are unknown from which all other species over the millennia have evolved. Shortly before Darwin published his book in 1859, Gregor Mendel, a priest who was a botanist as well as having some training as a physician, started dealing with reproduction in peas. From observations he made in the way peas transmitted one characteristic from one generation to another, he hypothesized what has become known as Mendelian genetics.⁴ Though first identified in the 1880s in lower species as vectors of heredity, in 1923 chromosomes were microscopically visualized in humans, marked as 48 in number incorrectly - later shown to be 46. In 1953 Watson and Crick identified the structure of DNA from which chromosomes are constructed for which they subsequently received the Nobel Prize.⁵ We know now in modern science that chromosomes are made up of genes which are of great biologic significance, and it appears that genetics, genomics and related fields may become the dominant specialties in Medicine in the future.

From a societal point of view, reproduction has always been very important. As Man evolved into an agrarian society from the hunter/gatherer phase, people organized and worked collectively in the fields and for other purposes. Occasionally they needed to provide armies to protect their properties and to fight other developing societies on earth who might want to overtake them. Thus, adequate reproduction was important to them, but in former times it was inefficient. Until recently women often died in childbirth as did many newborns. Many children did not live to adulthood. Infectious diseases killed many people as did warfare. The average lifespan even in 1900 was only 47 years of age.

In Biblical times having children was considered to be a gift from God. There is reference in Genesis of Abraham and Sarah being unable to have children. It was suggested that because they were both old in their late 80s, that Abraham have sex with Sarah's handmaiden, which he did, and they had a child.⁶ That may have been the first instance of surrogacy in history, but 3 years later Sarah apparently conceived spontaneously at age 90!⁷,⁸ To my knowledge, in modern times, the oldest woman who has given birth to a baby was at the age of 66. Even the ancient Egyptians had a goddess, Nephthys, who was the goddess of infertility to whom they prayed. In Grecian times despite the presence of the goddess of fertility Aphrodite, Hippocrates started applying rational thinking to the process of reproduction but he did not make much headway. In Roman times, once again the gods were important regarding fertility. There was very little respect for infertile women; the inability to bear children was grounds for divorce. You were not treated very well if you were an infertile woman in Roman times. In medieval times, infertility was thought to be a consequence of the actions of witches and devils. Sometimes infertile women were even considered to be