Mary Barton (obstetrician)

Mary Barton founded a fertility clinic in Portland Place, London, with her husband Bertold Wiesner in the late 1930s and it did not close until 1963.^[1][2] The clinic pioneered artificial insemination using donor sperm for women whose husbands may have been infertile. The clinic helped women conceive 1,500 babies,^[1] nicknamed the 'Barton Brood',^[3] although the exact records appear to have been destroyed in 1963 owing to the social taboos and lack of regulation surrounding the subject.^[4]

Early life

Mary Barton's motivation to work in the area of infertility came from time spent in India as a medical missionary where she witnessed the way in which women would be punished or even killed for being childless. Dr Douglas Barton, was Mary Barton's first husband, based in Dera Ismail Khan and he practised, with her, all around India’s North-west frontier.^[3] At the time, it was taboo to suggest that it might be the husband, and not the wife, who was infertile.^[3] Barton understood that both men and women could be infertile and returned to London and established a fertility practice, pioneering AID for women who were unable to conceive a child with their husband/partner.

The Barton Clinic

While there had been successful artificial insemination births documented during the 19th century,^[3] the practice was not widely accepted as ethical in Britain, even when used for the breeding of farm animals.^[3] After publishing a paper about their work in the British Medical Journal, the Archbishop of Canterbury labelled it 'the work of Beelzebub'.^[3] Although people refer to the 'Barton Clinic’ Dr Mary Barton did not have a ‘clinic’ as such, but practised from a single consulting room, plus an office for her medical secretary, Miss Gwen Jenkins who worked with Mary Barton for some 30 years.

Bertold Wiesner had his own consulting room/office. Dr Mary Barton also worked one day a week (probably for the newly formed National Health Service) at the Royal Free Hospital.It is likely that this was in a ‘clinic' shared with colleagues.

In a context of social taboo,Dr Mary Barton insisted on 'total secrecy' about the service she offered, telling the parents they should 'never let their children find out how they had been conceived or identify the donors'.^[3]

Some clients would pay a significant sum of money, meaning many of their clients were middle-income.^[2] Mary Barton also claimed to have helped many of the 'upper classes' and ‘peers of the realm’.^[2] In a paper in the British Medical Journal, Mary Barton explained that they used a 'small panel of donors', as sperm donors, who in reality were friends they considered of 'intelligent stock'.^[1][2][5] However, around 600 of the babies were conceived using sperm from Bertold Wiesner himself.^[1] It is not clear if Mary Barton knew the sperm being used was almost exclusively from her husband or their friends, but it is unlikely she would not have suspected this was the case, as she would have kept the records of donor fathers. Documentary maker Barry Stevens stated 'it's possible he Bertold Wiesner didn't tell his wife and she believed the donations were coming from a lot of different men'.^[3] Regardless, as a scientist specialising in fertility (among other areas) Bertold Wiesner would have been aware of the risks created by his fathering so many children (accidental incest and any subsequent genetic problems arising should the couple have children). There were thus potential conflicts of interest in continuing this practice in what was a medically ground-breaking and unregulated area at the time.

Legacy

The clinic was one of the first of its kind to offer artificial insemination, and arguably also practiced a form of eugenics. Mary Barton stated she only took people who were perceived to be 'above average' and from 'intelligent stock', projecting a subjective judgment onto people's genetic makeup:^[2]

"I matched race, colouring and stature and all donors were drawn from intelligent stock. I wouldn’t take a donor unless he was, if anything, a little above average. If you are going to do it [create a child] deliberately, you have got to put the standards rather higher than normal." Some commentators have argued that her actions were 'well-meaning', as there was a 'stigma of infertility and AID at the time',^[3]

The clinic helped women conceive 1,500 babies, the majority of whom came from perhaps only three fathers.^[1]

Mary Barton and Bertold Wiesner could not have known of the implications of contemporary research into the structure of DNA, and likely believed that after the destruction of the records, their actions would be untraceable.

References