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Ian Robert Dowbiggin (born 1952) is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Prince Edward Island and writer on the history of medicine, in particular topics such as euthanasia and Assisted suicide. His research and publications have been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Associated Medical Services. In 2011, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the brother of Canadian sports broadcaster and author Bruce Dowbiggin.
According to a review of A Concise History of Euthanasia by Sandra Woien in the American Journal of Bioethics, Dowbiggin sees euthanasia and eugenics as the inevitable results of abandoning the moral guidance of religion in medicine. Woien found that the book overemphasised the relationship between eugenics and euthanasia, and muddied "important conceptual and practical distinctions", but allowed that it may be "useful in understanding the historical context of euthanasia."
The Canadian Historical Association awarded Dowbiggin the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize for A Merciful End, stating that the book "gives a clear and evenly-balanced study of the history of euthanasia in the United States since the latter part of the nineteenth century", and concluded that it overall is a "masterful explanation of the way in which changing social, economic and disease-related factors have affected public interest in euthanasia."
Dowbiggin has spoken against euthanasia legislation and said that the Netherlands exists as a "cautionary lesson" for Canada in particular, showing that those places that "take a permissive attitude to assisted suicide keep pushing the boundaries."
Ulf Högberg, guest researcher of Public Health and Clinical Medicine at Umeå University, argued in the European Journal of Public Health that, "The book is most impressive, finely tuning the history between choice and compulsion of sterilization policy; sometimes it has been a fine line in between, sometimes an abyss of abuse of human rights."
A review in The New England Journal of Medicine, by Carolyn Westhoff, an official of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, summed up by agreeing with the book's conclusion that "advocacy of sterilization as a solution to population growth leads to serious problems when that agenda overrides individual values and individual autonomy", but differed from it in stating that "Voluntary sterilization, however, deserves its great popularity and will remain valuable as one part of a broader menu of options for family planning."
Sterilization
Dowbiggin published the book The Sterilization Movement and Global Fertility in the Twentieth Century in 2008. Drawing on scholarly sources, the book is primarily an account of sterilization as used for the purposes of eugenics and population control, examples including the use of sterilization by European fascists and the Indian mass sterilization program carried out during the 1975–1977 Emergency in India, which contributed to the downfall of Indira Gandhi's government.
Partial bibliography
Personal life
Dowbiggin is one of five sons born to Mary and Bill Dowbiggin in Montreal. His brother Bruce Dowbiggin is a sports broadcaster and author. His grandfather fought in World War I and four of his family members fought in World War II with Canada.
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