A rich exploration of birth appropriation in the West, New Reproductive Technologies and Disembodiment investigates the assimilation of women's embodied power into patriarchal systems of symbolism, culture and politics through the inversion of women's and men's reproductive roles. Contending that new reproductive technologies represent another world historical moment, both in their forging of novel social relations and material processes of reproduction, and their manner of disembodying women in unprecedented ways - a disembodiment evident in recent visual and literary, popular and academic texts - this volume locates the roots of this disembodiment in western political discourse.

Cloning, genetic screening, embryo freezing, in vitro fertilization, Norplant, RU486--these are the technologies revolutionizing our reproductive landscape. Through the lens of procreative liberty--meaning both the freedom to decide whether or not to have children as well as the freedom to control one's reproductive capacity--John Robertson, a leading legal bioethicist, analyzes the ethical, legal, and social controversies surrounding each major technology and opens up a multitude of fascinating questions: Do frozen embryos have the right to be born? Should parents be allowed to select offspring traits? May a government force welfare recipients to take contraceptives? Robertson's arguments examine the broad range of consequences of each reproductive technology and offers a timely, multifaceted analysis of the competing interests at stake for patients, couples, doctors, policymakers, lawyers, and ethicists.

This collection of essays provides an overview of the social developments associated with the new reproductive technologies. It assesses the significance of these new technologies for the field of the sociology of technology as a whole.

With attention to the ways in which new reproductive technologies facilitate the gradual disembodiment of reproduction, this book reveals the paradox of women's reproductive experience in patriarchal cultures as being both, and often simultaneously, empowering and disempowering. A rich exploration of birth appropriation in the West, New Reproductive Technologies and Disembodiment investigates the assimilation of women's embodied power into patriarchal systems of symbolism, culture and politics through the inversion of women's and men's reproductive roles. Contending that new reproductive technologies represent another world historical moment, both in their forging of novel social relations and material processes of reproduction, and their manner of disembodying women in unprecedented ways - a disembodiment evident in recent visual and literary, popular and academic texts - this volume locates the roots of this disembodiment in western political discourse. A call to feminist political theory to re-remember the material dimensions of bodies and their philosophical significance, New Reproductive Technologies and Disembodiment will appeal to scholars of sociology, gender studies, political and social theory and the study of science, technology and health.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. A sociological and historical study of the development of reproductive technologies, this book focuses on key technological developments through a biomedicalization lens with special attention to gender. Using in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a hub, it critically examines the main areas of related socio-technical developments: reproductive science, birth control, animal husbandry, genetics and reproductive medicine. Employing a critical framework to illuminate dominant discourses, the book also highlights examples of social resistance, as well as contradictory responses to new reproductive technologies. Over eight chapters, the author examines the social history of reproduction and sexuality, reproductive technologies from old to new and debates surrounding new reproductive technologies and genetic engineering. Women and Reproductive Technologies pays close attention to the interconnections between the business of reproduction (and replication industries), the sociality of reproduction (including reproductive justice) and what are considered the technologies themselves. As such, it constitutes essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of sociology, health studies and gender studies interested in the current state of human reproduction.

On Christmas day, 1993, a 59-year-old British woman gave birth to healthy twins. In Italy the very same week, a black woman bore a white baby, produced from the semen of her white husband and an egg donated by a white woman. Heated debates ensued across the United States and Europe. Fifteen years ago the very idea of conception outside a woman's womb triggered science fiction fantasies and alarmist speculations. Today, thousands of babies are manufactured with the help of in-vitro fertilization and related technologies each year. The application of these procedures has continuously shifted the boundaries of conception and reproduction. In the public debate on new reproductive technologies, many voices have been heard: medical scientists hailing the new technologies as an unprecedented advance; feminists raising apprehensions about the way in which these technologies might rob a woman of her reproductive autonomy and bodily integrity; and ethicists, religious groups, and politicians expressing concerns about the social and moral implications of the new technologies. Mapping out the public debate in the three discourses which play the most significant role in the distribution of public meanings—science, journalism and fiction—Jos Van Dyck here traces the ways in which this public consent has been manufactured. This book examines important questions about the relationship between science, technology and popular culture.