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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Vicky LongORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
The article examines how attitudes towards disability and infancy shaped informed consent and medical ethics in late 1970s Britain. It focuses on a baby who shared her year, month of birth, and forename – Louise - with the first baby conceived through in vitro fertilisation. This Louise, born with spina bifida myelomeningocele, died within a month of birth from infection, dehydration, and starvation. The article reveals how progress treating spina bifida was deliberately reversed in the 1970s when some doctors and policy makers, viewing disability as a burden and babies as lacking personhood, argued that it was better for babies to die, than to survive with significant impairments. The new principle of involving parents in decision-making left many burdened with guilt for decisions largely taken by doctors, while a deliberately opaque government policy prevented doctors from being tried for manslaughter but left them exposed to public scrutiny and criminal investigation.
Author(s): Long V
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Social History of Medicine
Year: 2026
Pages: ePub ahead of Print
Online publication date: 06/03/2026
Acceptance date: 02/04/2025
Date deposited: 02/04/2025
ISSN (print): 0951-631X
ISSN (electronic): 1477-4666
Publisher: Oxford University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkaf033
DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkaf033
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