"No More Willow Islands": Revisiting Coalition Building Around Reproductive Freedom
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 31, 2026

Introduction of Intracapsular Rotary-cut Procedures (IRCP): A Modified Hysteromyomectomy Procedures Facilitating Fertility Preservation
Published on: January 17, 2019
Sadie Bergen1, Molly M Henderson1, Susan M Reverby1
1Sadie Bergen is with the Department of Medical History & Bioethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Molly M. Henderson is with the Department of Gender & Women's Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Susan M. Reverby is a professor emerita with the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA.
Abstract:
We examine the material and conceptual impact of the Coalition for the Reproductive Rights of Workers (CRROW) during the late 1970s. CRROW assembled in response to the news that five women had undergone sterilization procedures to retain their unionized industrial jobs at an American Cyanamid chemical manufacturing plant in Willow Island, West Virginia, following the plant's institution of a so-called fetal protection policy. Drawing on organizational archives and oral histories, we piece together the trajectory of CRROW, highlighting its promise in bridging political divides between unionized labor, feminists and reproductive rights activists, and environmentalists, as well as its shortcomings in putting its aims into practice as the occupational health regulations built out in the 1970s fell victim to the changing political headwinds of the 1980s. Throughout, we emphasize the lessons CRROW, in its successes and its limitations, offers health advocates in the present. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 29, 2026:e1-e7. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308773).
Related Concept Videos
Reproductive Cloning
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
In SCNT, an egg cell is taken from an animal and its nucleus is removed, creating an enucleated egg. Then a somatic cell—any cell that is not a sex...
Reproductive Cloning
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
In SCNT, an egg cell is taken from an animal and its nucleus is removed, creating an enucleated egg. Then a somatic cell—any cell that is not a sex...
Understanding Species and Reproductive Barriers
Infertility in Females
Endometriosis, a condition characterized by abnormal growth of endometrial...
International Nursing Organizations II
The WHO provides expert team support, including funding, vaccines, testing, and treatment tools at the country level to fight...
Overview of the Reproductive System
The gonads, or primary reproductive organs, produce gametes and sex hormones. In males, the testes produce spermatozoa and testosterone, which is responsible for developing secondary male sex characteristics, including a deeper voice, larger muscles, facial and body...

