Aiding Marital Childlessness:Christian Religious Responses to Husband and Donor Insemination in Belgium and Britain, 1940–1980*

This article compares religious responses to artificial insemination in Belgium and Britain from circa 1940 to 1980. Belgium was predominantly Catholic, whereas Britain was religiously diverse, combining Anglicanism, Protestantism, and Catholicism as the main Christian denominations. Despite these differences, religious actors in both countries became more permissive towards artificial insemination in the period under study. This article reveals that religious actors were adapting their morals to medical and societal challenges of the time. In the 1940s, doctors and theologians argued that art... Mehr ...