Social and Medical Trends in Female Sterilization in Aberdeen, 1951–72

Abstract

SummaryThis paper reports the social and medical characteristics of women resident in Aberdeen city who were sterilized in 1951–52, 1961–62 and 1971–72, 211, 399 and 1125 women respectively. In 1951–52 women were offered sterilization, the majority being lower social class mothers with five or more children who were sterilized concurrently with abortion; the small number of upper social class women had one or two children and were sterilized for medical or obstetric reasons. By 1961–62, sterilization as a mean of family limitation was becoming acceptable to women in all social groups, families were of four or five children and the women were much younger when they were sterilized post-partum. Later in the 1960s, oral contraception, IUDs and laparoscopy and vasectomy were introduced. In 1971–72, women themselves requested sterilization, the two–three child family was the norm, the proportion of upper social class women continued to increase, and interval sterilization was gaining ground.