Producers, Users, and the Actors Between: Chikako Takeshita, The Global Biopolitics of the IUD; Heather Munro Prescott, The Morning After

Amid ongoing debates concerning religious exemptions from the birth control mandate of the U.S. Affordable Care Act, and age restrictions for over-the-counter access to emergency contraceptives, historical accounts that broaden our perspective on the regulation and uptake of reproductive technologies are welcome resources. The books reviewed here offer an excellent overview of the various points of fracture that have shaped the postwar social and political histories of contraceptive technologies. Together, they provide a rich understanding of how the issue of birth control became wrapped up in the larger, and increasingly militant, debate over abortion in America during the 1980s and 1990s. Studies examining medical technologies offer a valuable opportunity to explore the role of state actors, regulators, and corporations in both promoting and slowing uptake. These contributions both do an excellent job of further complicating our sometimes overly dichotomous producer-consumer model for analyzing the marketing and uptake of new technologies.