This thesis conveys the history of reproductive politics in Oregon through the life of Dr. Jessie Laird Brodie (1898-1990). Brodie was a key figure in this history from the 1930's until the 1970's, mainly through the establishment of family planning programs through social and medical channels in Oregon and throughout Latin America. Oregon's reproductive legislation walked a fine line between conservatism and progressivism, but in general supported reproductive healthcare as a whole in comparison to the rest of the United States and Latin America. The state passed controversial contraceptive legislation in 1935 that benefited public health, but also passed eugenic laws, specifically a 1938 marriage bill, that attempted to limit specific population's reproductive control. By the time family planning was solidly rooted in the national and international sociopolitical discourse in the 1960's, due to the advent of the "pill," population control rhetoric, and the Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) Supreme Court decision, eugenic laws were virtually obsolete. Portland's history suggests that leaders in local reproductive politics sought to appeal to a diverse clientele but were restricted to the confines of federal funding mandates, specifically the war on poverty, that were fueled by postwar liberalism in an increasingly global age. The first chapter concentrates on the history of women's health and reproduction in Oregon prior to the 1960's. Dr. Jessie Laird Brodie's experiences with families in poverty during medical school in the 1920's disheartened her and motivated her to seek ways for these women to efficiently and affordably access birth control information. In response to public health concerns, she helped get positive contraception legislation passed in Oregon in the 1930's that set guidelines and restrictions for manufacture of contraceptives. This law was the first of its kind in the country and set a precedent for other states to follow. Brodie also supported a marriage bill in the 1930's that mandated premarital syphilis and psychological testing, in the hopes that it would lead couples to seek contraceptive, or "hygienic," advice from their physicians as efforts to establish a birth control clinic had failed up to this point. The second chapter focuses on Brodie's continued involvement in Oregon in the 1940's and 1950's, a period marked by a high tide of pronatalism in the U.S., and how she took Oregon's vision for women to a national and international level. Locally, she was involved with the E.C. Brown Trust, an organization dedicated to sex education, and was the President for the Pacific Northwest Conference on Family Relations, a group focused on the postwar family adjustments of higher divorce rates and juvenile delinquency. In 1947, Brodie was one of the founding members of the Pan-American Medical Women's Alliance, an organization created to provide a professional arena for women physicians throughout the Americas to discuss problems specific to women and children. Involvement with these groups helped her gain recognition nationally and in the late 1950's she served as President, and then Executive Director, of the American Medical Women's Association. Lastly, the third chapter looks at the establishment and growth of Planned Parenthood Association of Oregon (PPAO) in the 1960's under Brodie's leadership and her foray into the international establishment of family planning programs through the Boston-based Pathfinder Fund, an organization whose mission involved bringing effective reproductive healthcare to developing countries. Brodie acted as Executive Director for PPAO, where she was able to use her medical expertise and connections to bring the new organization credibility and respect throughout Oregon that they lacked before her involvement because the board was mainly comprised of a younger generation on the brink of second-wave feminism and the sexual revolution. In her career with Pathfinder she assessed the needs for family planning in Latin American and Caribbean countries and facilitated the establishment of programs in the region, largely in cooperation with the U.S. federal government and the Population Council. The conclusion offers a brief history of Dr. Brodie's continued involvement in the local and international communities beyond 1975 and the awards she received highlighting her career in the battle for effective healthcare for all women. In short, this thesis argues that legal and rights-based contestations that were prevalent in other regions of the U.S. and throughout the world were not characteristic of Oregon, allowing Brodie and PPAO to bring birth control to the state with relatively limited opposition.

The dissertation follows up metods of assisted reproduction and its ethical aspects that are described with their particular metods of assisted reproduction. It summarizes opinions of supporters, such as doctors, but also opinions of respondents such as ethicists or theologian. Dissertation is mostly focused on moral status of embryo and their superfluous creations. It warns us to be aware that assisted reproduction can leads to violation of human dignity but also let us learn ways of assisted reproduction which are considerate to embryos and which do not jeopardize human dignity. It describes problems of legislation in Czech Republic but also in Germany and Great Britain. One part is also dedicated to opinions of catholic Church. Last chapter describes involuntary childlessness.

This work deals with infertility and the ethical aspects of assisted reproduction. Theoretic part is devoted to male and female infertility, its causes, the methods and issues of assisted reproduction, which are ethically unacceptable as shledávány, where some are tolerated under certain conditions. The practical part of this thesis are examined attitudes of infertile couples and the public on the ethical aspects of assisted reproduction.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Local birth control advocates often found themselves attempting to open birth control clinics in restrictive climates that did not welcome open discussions of sexuality. To accomplish this, the organizers chose their tactics carefully and followed common strategies. After a few stumbles, organized birth control in many states began in earnest in the 1930s. By 1943, just ten years after its opening, the Indianapolis birth control clinic could boast that it had served 4,531 women and openly solicit funds from the community. The Maternal Health League’s plea on its fundraising brochure assured citizens of their patriotic duty to help. The league reminded Hoosiers, “In War and In Peace a Nation is as Strong as the Health of Its Mothers and Children.” Arguments such as these allowed the clinic to open and assured its existence for many years to come. Indiana birth control organizers relied on specific tactics that allowed them to accomplish their goals in a restrictive Midwestern state. Indiana’s birth control story offers modern-day readers a very different picture than that offered by studies of the national movement of birth control. Indiana offers an account that relies more on cooperation and less on confrontation.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis analyzes the relationship between Flanner House, an African American settlement house, and Planned Parenthood of Central Indiana to determine why Flanner House director Cleo Blackburn would not allow a birth control clinic to be established at the Herman G. Morgan Health Center in 1951. Juxtaposing the scholarship of African Americans and birth control with the historiography of black settlement houses leads to the conclusion that Blackburn’s refusal to add birth control to the health center’s services had little to do with the black Indianapolis community’s opinions on birth control; instead, Flanner House was confined by conservative limitations imposed on it by white funders and organizations. The thesis examines the success of Blackburn and Freeman B. Ransom, Indianapolis’s powerful black leaders, in working within the system of limitations to establish the Morgan Health Center in 1947. Ransom and Blackburn received monetary support from the United Fund, the Indianapolis Foundation, and the U.S. Children’s Bureau, which stationed one of its physicians, Walter H. Maddux, in Indianapolis. The Center also worked as a part of the Indianapolis City Board of Health’s public health program. These organizations and individuals did not support birth control at this time and would greatly influence Blackburn’s decision about providing contraceptives. In 1951, Planned Parenthood approached Blackburn about adding birth control to the services at Morgan Health Center. Blackburn refused, citing the Catholic influence on the Flanner House board. While acknowledging the anti-birth control stance of Indianapolis Catholics, the thesis focuses on other factors that contributed to Blackburn’s decision and argues that the position of Flanner House as a black organization funded by conservative white organizations had more impact than any religious sentiment; birth control would have been a liability for the Morgan Health Center as adding contraceptives could have threatened the funding the Center needed in order to serve the African American community. Finally, the position of Planned Parenthood and Flanner House as subordinate organizations operating within the limitations of Indianapolis society are compared and found to be similar.

This thesis examines the effects of the change from strict scrutiny to the undue burden standard in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). A history of abortion in the United States and the various ways in which government regulates it is explored. Particular attention is focused on the role of the federal judiciary in abortion regulation. Theories of judicial decision making are discussed as means to understand the outcome of cases. Several models are tested to determine which, if any, model explains judicial decision making. The effect of the change in standard, as well as an alternate precedent, are examined.

Social Work / M. A. (Social Science)

Social Work / M. A. (Social Science)