Pregnancy and childbirth in Swedish television, 1956-1975

The purpose of this project is to write a book that synthesizes and deepens my research on pregnancy and childbirth in Swedish television during the period from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. The focus is on how television as a new medium with huge impact mediated three related issues of contemporary concern: abortion, birth defects, and childbirth. All these issues were the object of medical and technological advancement during the period, while they were at the same time political questions in which a number of social movements were engaged. However, television’s role in the media discussion of these issues is much underexplored, even though television developed into the most popular medium of all during the period. Through analysis of a variety of television programs on these issues and related media and archival material the book explores how and by whom these programs were produced, in what ways the issues were represented and how bodies were visualized in them, and how they were discussed in other media and what consequences this had. The project is significant because it highlights the relationship between media, medicine, and politics. In an era of great media change when reproductive rights are furthermore being threatened in many parts of the world, knowledge about the longer media history of reproduction is important.