Growing up in Japan, I was oblivious to the controversy around the intrauterine device (IUD) that took place in the United States and elsewhere during the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, I had never even heard of IUDs until about 

a dozen years ago, after I moved to the United States. During an unrelated 

conversation, a prominent women’s health activist and population studies scholar told me that scholars outside of international family planning 

had taken little notice of this contraceptive method despite its prevalence 

overseas. She believed that this was due in part to the device’s damaged 

reputation in the United States. “But IUDs can help women control their 

fertility,” she remarked, “particularly in pro- natal societies because women 

can use them secretly when their husbands object to contraception.” Although I knew very little about the device, the complex history involving 

diverse women’s lives behind this technology came through in her comments. This brief interaction left a strong impression on me, and I eventually launched the study that resulted in this book. 

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This book investigates the development, marketing, and use of the IUD, 

tracing five decades (1960s to 2000s) of scientific activities and discourse 

surrounding the device. I have approached the subject from a feminist science and technology studies (STS) perspective, with the goal of illuminating the politics and processes of knowledge formation in contraceptive 

research that have had a significant impact on women’s health and lives. 

I discovered in the writings of researchers, supporters, and opponents of 

the IUD how discursive relationships between contraceptive technologies 

and women’s bodies were formed, re- formed, and multiplied over time. 

I engaged in the analytical work of tracing and accounting for the shifts 

in the scientific discourse while simultaneously investigating the broader 

historical, social, and political contexts within which IUD researchers were 

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operating. Accounting for the past fifty years of the history of this technology in the United States and globally was like putting together a giant multidimensional puzzle that then had to be taken apart to compose separate 

chapters. This book offers a multifaceted picture of the historical roots of 

and the complex interactions among the heterogeneous constructions of 

this contraceptive device and its users.