This workshop (known by the acronym EIRTAW), held at Hampshire College on June 24-29, 1979, was the first conference on reproductive technology to focus on women's perceptions of the ethical issues involved. It was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the EVIST (Ethical Issues in Science and Technology) program. Many of the NSF evaluators of the proposal and the program (the majority were male) doubted the legitimacy of this focus on women's opinions, as documented in the file. The principal investigator and co-director of the workshop was Helen B. Holmes, who was on the faculty of Russell Sage College at the time of the proposal. The workshop brought together invited participants from many fields. The proceedings of the workshop were published in two volumes, Birth Control and Controlling Birth (Humana Press, 1980) and The Custom-Made Child? (Humana Press, 1981), which are present in the collection. A follow-up symposium was held in January 1980 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The files consist of grant proposals, correspondence and working files for the workshop, transcripts and edited versions of the papers presented, correspondence relating to the published proceedings, cassette tapes of the workshop, and material relating to the AAAS symposium. The meticulous arrangement of the files was maintained during processing, including the section headings indicated in capital letters in the Contents List. The sections are in chronological order, further divided by subject or correspondent in alphabetical order.