TY - JOUR
T1 - Cold War Entanglements and Abortion Technology
T2 - Writing Yugoslavia into the Global History of Vacuum Aspiration, 1964-1974
AU - Bogdan, Branka
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The University of Queensland and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.
PY - 2018/9
Y1 - 2018/9
N2 - This article centres on the innovation of a now commonly-used and World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended technique for the termination of first-trimester pregnancies, vacuum aspiration. I add to the current scholarship that examines reproductive regulation in Eastern Europe and internationally, by writing Yugoslav physicians and innovators into the global story of the technology’s development. During the 1960s and 1970s, Yugoslav physicians played an instrumental role in the innovation of vacuum aspiration. Physicians operated under the party-endorsed political and ideological aegis of family planning and the state used family planning to build a self-image of a modern and progressive state in the international Cold War context. In their public rhetoric, physicians attributed scientific advances to the modern nature of the state’s distinct style of socialism, the Yugoslav way. The state, in turn, utilised domestic medical innovation and social policy to elevate Yugoslav socialism around the world. While the Yugoslav way was not exceptional, Yugoslavia’s atypical geopolitical positioning after the Second World War offered Yugoslav gynaecologists and medical innovators the unusual opportunity to research methods and techniques, and propagate their findings abroad.
AB - This article centres on the innovation of a now commonly-used and World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended technique for the termination of first-trimester pregnancies, vacuum aspiration. I add to the current scholarship that examines reproductive regulation in Eastern Europe and internationally, by writing Yugoslav physicians and innovators into the global story of the technology’s development. During the 1960s and 1970s, Yugoslav physicians played an instrumental role in the innovation of vacuum aspiration. Physicians operated under the party-endorsed political and ideological aegis of family planning and the state used family planning to build a self-image of a modern and progressive state in the international Cold War context. In their public rhetoric, physicians attributed scientific advances to the modern nature of the state’s distinct style of socialism, the Yugoslav way. The state, in turn, utilised domestic medical innovation and social policy to elevate Yugoslav socialism around the world. While the Yugoslav way was not exceptional, Yugoslavia’s atypical geopolitical positioning after the Second World War offered Yugoslav gynaecologists and medical innovators the unusual opportunity to research methods and techniques, and propagate their findings abroad.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054605581&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/ajph.12486
DO - 10.1111/ajph.12486
M3 - Article
SN - 0004-9522
VL - 64
SP - 407
EP - 421
JO - Australian Journal of Politics and History
JF - Australian Journal of Politics and History
IS - 3
ER -