Commerce and modern reproduction.

Abstract

We now take for granted finding menstrual pads and tampons, condoms and home pregnancy tests on pharmacy and supermarket shelves. So integral have such products become to experiences of ‘everyday health’, it is hard to believe they were ever controversial. If their ubiquity makes them invisible, their pervasiveness and variety also make it easy to overlook their identity as consumer products and the fundamental significance of commercial processes in shaping how people do and do not reproduce. Yet despite longstanding interest in the pharmaceutical industry’s role in the making of biomedicine, until recently few histories have thematized the pivotal role of commercial concerns in shaping modern reproduction. Yet, as the books reviewed in this essay show us, menstruation, contraception and pregnancy testing were, and are, big business.