Assisted Reproduction Across Borders

Abstract

Assisted Reproduction Across Borders reflects on the state of the art of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs). From feminist perspectives, contributors explore how, today, ARTs have reached a ‘mature’ stage impying that some practices, eg, in vitro fertilization (IVF), have become standard worldwide. In focus are contemporary political debates triggered by ARTs, and the varying ways in which societies deal with ARTs, worldwide, depending on religious, moral and political approaches. Such differences are analysed, based on original research contributions from a variety of countries in Europe and beyond. The volume demonstrates how differently ARTs are interpreted and practised in different contexts, for example, confronting discussions of surrogacy practices from the perspective of the global South and the global North. Early feminist struggles framed ARTs in terms of technoscience gaining control over women’s bodies, but also as providing possibilities for freeing women from childbirth as a way to gender equality. More recently, however, ARTs have been celebrated as a facilitator of queer family-building, while surrogacy, egg and embryo donation has been criticized as exploitation of women’s reproductive labour. Contributors pinpoint that central contemporary concerns are in/equalities in terms of access to ARTs and the transnational biocapitalist traffic in gametes and gestational labour.