Lewis Madison Terman was a researcher and university professor who studied educational psychology and advocated for eugenics in the United States during the early twentieth century. The US eugenics movement, which Terman supported, was a collection of scientific research and social programs that aimed to improve human populations through control over human reproduction. One area many eugenicists studied was human intelligence as a means of determining how “desirable” a person may be. During the 1910s, while working at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, Terman helped devise the Stanford-Binet scale for intelligence testing. As of 2024, the Stanford-Binet test is one of the main methods for providing individual intelligence quotient, or IQ, scores. In addition to the Stanford-Binet scale, Terman promoted the idea that individuals had fixed and inherited capacities for intelligence. Through both his development of a widely used method for measuring human intelligence and his promotion of the idea of intelligence as hereditary, Terman supported widespread social efforts to control human reproduction in the US during the twentieth century.

Over the past few decades, female infertility rates have been steadily increasing. As of 2025, various infertility treatments, including IVF and artificial insemination, exist that enable some otherwise infertile women to experience pregnancy. However, those available treatments rely on women to have a uterus. Although the majority of women are born with a typical functioning uterus, between 3-5% of women worldwide have uterine factor infertility, a medical condition where women either do not have a normal functioning uterus or completely lack a uterus. Experimentation with uterus transplantations and artificial uteruses have begun as potential treatment options. This research project explores the evolution of infertility treatments to understand the ethical and social implications of these developing uterine technologies. I conducted this research as a member of the Embryo Project Encyclopedia, an open access resource focused on effectively communicating scientific topics of reproduction, embryology, and developmental biology to diverse public audiences. My analysis revealed that anatomical research concerning the uterus’ function began between the antiquity era and the Renaissance. By the end of the seventeenth century, intellectuals understood the morphology and reproductive function of the uterus and other female reproductive organs; however, no treatments existed to remedy infertility. Over the next three centuries, researchers began to experiment with artificial insemination and IVF, which eventually overcame ethical criticisms to become common medical practices by the end of the twentieth century. My findings reveal that uterus transplantations and artificial uteruses will likely follow the historical trends of previous reproductive technologies and become future medical practices.