Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: The Birth of the Sperm Bank 243 All of these baby-making possibilities were set before the citizens of Cedar Rapids that spring.Despite the enthusiasm and persistence of the Gazette reporter, who followed the story for a year, the "history-making" Iowa research was not universally acclaimed. 6 Anticipating praise and professional glory, Bunge and Sherman instead found themselves the subject of criticism in Iowa and within the national medical community.Americans remained skeptical of assisted conception, after death or otherwise, and even fertility specialists distanced themselves from the Iowa breakthrough.It would be decades before frozen sperm would be fully incorporated into the practice of reproductive medicine.THE IOWA BABIES, renewed proof of the ability to separate sexuality and reproduction, were the mid-century version of the "test tube baby," the popular term for the result of assisted conception that had been sparking enthusiasm, anxiety, and controversy for decades.In the first English-language book on the subject, Test Tube Babies, published in 1934, German physician Herman Rohleder traced the artificial impregnation of humans back to the late eighteenth century. 7 Following early reports by European experimenters, scattered American doctors had attempted artificial insemination, with husband and with donor sperm, with limited success. 8By 1920, the elite physicians of the American Gynecological Society had begun to discuss the tech-9.
Source: The Annals of Iowa
Author: Kara W. Swanson
Institution: Northeastern University
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W133650591