Pioneering doctor put region in the spotlight
Published: March 30, 2005
Section: Local, page B10
Type of story: EDITORIAL

© 2005- Landmark Communications Inc.
Georgeanna S. Jones, who died over the weekend at 92, lived a remarkable life, dedicated equally to easing the reproductive barriers facing women and to nurturing her own family, including husband-colleague Howard W. Jones Jr. and their three children. The Joneses' storied partnership of more than 60 years brought fame - and in some ways, notoriety - to Eastern Virginia Medical School, where they founded the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in 1983. They crafted a new beginning for themselves when they moved to the region in the late '70s after spending many years in Baltimore.


Their pioneering work produced America's first test-tube baby. Elizabeth J. Carr, born on Dec. 28, 1981, was conceived in a laboratory dish under the Joneses' watchful eyes.

Scores of physicians from across the nation and world traveled to southeastern Virginia in the wake of that breakthrough, schooling themselves in the techniques of in vitro fertilization. According to newspaper accounts, more than 114,000 babies have since been born in the U.S. through the process of artificially joining a father's sperm with a mother's ripe egg cell.

Born in Baltimore and educated at Johns Hopkins University medical school and the National Cancer Institute, Georgeanna Jones was concerned from the start of her career with reproductive issues. She became one of the nation's first reproductive endocrinologsts and her contributions to the field are legion, including more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and more than 20 book chapters.

To acquaintances, she displayed a joyful - even playful - spirit, as well as a deep intelligence and a resolute commitment to her craft. In a reasoned and passionate, but understated, article published in The Virginian-Pilot in May 1987, Dr. Jones defended the ethical basis of in vitro fertilization.

Entitled "A Mother's Reply to the Vatican," the article urged the Catholic Church to redefine conjugal love between human beings "in terms that emphasize all-encompassing love instead of limiting it to sexual intercourse." To say that every intercourse must be open to the possibility of reproduction is to condemn sterile or post-menopausal women to abstinence, she said.

And to insist that every reproduction begin with sexual intercourse is similarly unreasoned. "When our investigations indicate either additional functions, such as pleasure in intercourse, or additional therapeutic measures for correction of defects, such as IVF for the treatment of infertility, we should accept these findings as further evidence of God's will for us to be inquisitive and rational," she said.

Alzheimer's disease limited Jones in her final years. But that does not dim her legacy as one of the leading scientists of the 20th century. Hampton Roads residents were fortunate to have her in our midst during one of the most productive periods of her long, groundbreaking career.