Notes on "The Social and Legal Implications of Artificial Insemination"

Title:
Notes on "The Social and Legal Implications of Artificial Insemination"
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Notes from a lecture by (amongst others) Mary Barton, given to the National Association of Probation Officers in 1949 in London.

Held in the Wellcome Collection, closed stores MS.8840.

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/jkz6yfxw

Description from the catalogue:

Typed notes of lecture arranged by the National Association of Probation Officers, Middlesex Branch, Guildhall, Westminster, 17 May 1949: speakers were Dr Mary Barton, Dr Gilbert Russell, and Dr Letitia Fairfield. Taken by Mabel Winifred Burns (nee Ridd) (b. 1898). Mary Barton was a gynaecologist and a pioneer in the use of artificial insemination for infertile couples; Gilbert Russell was a medical doctor and Anglican clergyman who has been secretary of the Archbishop of Canterbury's committee on AID; Letitia Fairfield was a medical doctor and qualified barrister

Physical description: 1 file

Also on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/1949-social-legal-implication

Full text

The Social and Legal Implications of Artificial Insemination.

Lecture arranged by the National Association of Probation Officers, Middlesex Branch.

The Guildhall.
Westminster, S.W.1.
17th May, 1949.

Speakers:
Dr. Mary Barton,
Dr. Gilbert Russell,
Dr. Letitia Fairfield.

Dr. Mary Barton, gynaecologist and pioneer of A.I.D. opened the lecture by saying that A.I.D. was a small affair but was creating a big stir. There were no more than 40 cases a year, and she had been doing the work for over 7 years, the eldest child by donated insemination being nearly eight.

Advantages of work. She believed advantages outweighed disadvantages.

1. It is a fact that it salvages a proportion of marriages that would otherwise break down.
2. Gives satisfaction to a great maternal urge.
3. It gives a way by which adultery may be avoided.

Minds must be clarified as to whether A.I.D. is adultery. The type of woman who comes for A.I.D. is not the type who would commit adultery.

Disadvantages.

1. Deception of those one loves most and the deception of the child itself. This is a grave disadvantage.

2. There is the possibility of marriage between half brother and sister. At the present time this is a lesser problem that the marriage of meeting illegitimate children. If it became an extended practice, great precautions would have to be used. No man is allowed to produce more than a few children.

Socially A.I.D. has a Eugenic advantage. A valuable type of stock can be produced. The children of A.I.D. to date are a very high standard.

A.I.D. has given increased scientific knowledge. It has produced important information on fecundation, and many details of female infertility.

There can be no pronouncement on long distance effects. There has been enormous increase of sympathetic understanding in the last few years and a lessening in prejudice. Perhaps it can be brought within the law by some means.

Dr. Gilbert Russell. Clergyman of C. of England. Doctor of Medicine. Secretary of Archbishop of Canterbury's Committee set up to discuss this subject.

He said he had seen some cases which had since regretted it, but he agreed that many were good. Sociological consequences involved. His own views were formed by the Archbishop's Commission which sat for 3 years and explored all aspects of A.I.D. very thoroughly. The findings were an attempt to form a judgement on evidence.

If A.I.D. is not adultery, or it is, it has an important bearing in the life of Society.

Registration of a child under the husband's name would be perjury.

The suggestion that a marriage can only be saved by a child being begotten, breaks up marriage more.

10% of all married couples are sterile.

A.I.D. does concern the relatives and family at large. The community claims the right to know who its members are. Grandparents have a right to know if their children's children are their own. The family is the basic unit of society. If the woman may introduce a child by A.I.D. into the family, it would be justice for a man to introduce a child of his by another woman. Where the father has some impediment of defect, the child of A.I.D. should be informed that he may not fear that impediment or defect.

A.I.D. belongs to the deprocessing of the whole procreation relationship.

Many marriages may have been saved, but the fundamental cause of breakdown is that people go in for "better only" and feel free to get out of marriage again if anything goes wrong.

Compassion should be felt for married women who cannot have children by their husbands.

If married women's maternal impulses are so strong that they can demand satisfaction, what answer can be given to unmarried women who desire children?

The Donor.

There is the question of getting suitable donors. Most men are repelled. But those who do give to A.I.D. may be abnormal. The nature of marriage must decide our attitude to A.I.D.

our society must return to a more natural condition, or die.

Dr. Letitia Fairfield, Doctor of Medicine and a Barrister, then gave the legal side.

This procedure of A.I.D. was unknown to Ecclesiastical Law from which our Common Law came.

Lawyers are differing on the inferences.

A.I.D. is not in itself illegal.

A.I.H. and A.I.D. have to be considered separately.

Annulment of Marriage.

A wife does not lose her right of annulment of she has practised A.I.D. but the child is called illegitimate. If fecundation can take place by remote control, one can have adultery by remote control.

Legal Position of the Child.

Child is in the same position as any child begotten to a married woman by any other than her husband. If husband accepts it as his own he must not register it as his child, for that is perjury and is a criminal offence open to a punishment of 7 years penal servitude. If we are to deman that perjury be allowed to conceal the real details of births, it cuts at the base o

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