Posters * Cross-Border Reproductive Care

Abstract

Introduction:This paper provides an overview of reproductive medical travel in the Asia-Pacific region, and some of the significant anthropological considerations it raises. It aims to contribute to debates on the implications of reproductive travel for reproductive rights. I give a summary of reproductive travel in the region, focusing upon Thailand, India and South Korea, which have developed a sophisticated and profitable reproductive trade. While the services in these countries cater for their own populations, they also provide assisted reproductive services for wealthy patients from the region seeking services not available in their home countries, and for patients from other wealthy countries seeking to avoid the costs, waits, limitations or regulatory boundaries in their home countries. I explore the consequences through case studies and the policy and regulatory frameworks that exist to regulate this trade within the region.Methods:The paper is a qualitative review of issues raised by anthropological work on this issue in the Asian region combined with preliminary case studies conducted with 6 patients travelling for IVF services to a clinic in Thailand.Results:The growth of travel for reproductive medical services generates some important policy questions such as equity in access to services, protection of vulnerable populations and appropriate regulatory mechanisms versus reproductive autonomy. A comprehensive examination of the challenges raised by medical travel must include consideration of the socio-cultural and political impacts for those involved in the trade. Reproductive travel involves the intensification of stratification and commodification of the body and is riven with issues pertaining to race and class. Choices of clinic, ova and sperm donors and embryos carry considerations of race, ‘whiteness’, sex, class and eugenic potential determined by market forces. Countries in the Asia region struggle to meet the regulatory challenges the trade poses.Conclusions:A major obstacle to developing policies, monitoring and evaluation of cross-border reproductive care is the lack of reliable and comparable data on the extent and practice of reproductive travel. Although reliable quantitative data is urgently required, qualitative data (i.e., ethnographic accounts) also has a useful role to play, particularly in monitoring the actual practice of clinics and experiences of patients on the ground, and in understanding the effects of differences in cultural, religious and social norms and grounded bioethical decision-making. Copyright © 2011 European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology