Contraceptive Sterilisation: A History of Tubal Ligation and Vasectomy in Twentieth Century Australia, 1926-86

Abstract

This thesis considers the rise of contraceptive sterilisation throughout the twentieth century, using Australia as a case study to focus consideration of this global trend. From the 1920s to the 1980s, a series of gradual social changes took place that affected understandings and practices of tubal ligation and vasectomy, which led to sterilisation achieving worldwide popularity as a contraceptive by the 1980s. This diachronic rise in popularity is explored in relation to ideas of gender, sexuality, technology, and experiences of tubal ligation and vasectomy – this is not a thesis about public discussion, instead actual practices of sterilisation are the primary focus. The central argument of this thesis is that contraceptive sterilisation occurred throughout the twentieth century: largely removed from the public eye in the early decades, practices of tubal ligation and vasectomy began to alter in the 1950s and ‘60s – a period of rapid change that preceded the universal upswing of surgical contraception in the 1970s and ‘80s. In the twenty-first century, tubal ligation remains the most prevalent method of contraception in the world, yet sterilisation has rarely been the subject of historical analysis outside the realm of the eugenics movement. Additionally, it is often absent in histories of birth control, which are frequently dominated by the introduction of the pill and the “sexual revolution” of “the sixties”. In light of this, I argue that contraceptive sterilisation deserves considerably more scholarly attention than it currently receives and this thesis contributes to histories of birth control, sex, gender, medicine, technology and eugenics.