A philosopher examines the social implications of assisted reproductive technologies at the intersection of race, medicine, and bioethics. The use of assisted reproductive technologies (ART)—in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, and gestational surrogacy—challenges contemporary notions of what it means to be parents or families. Camisha A. Russell argues that these technologies also bring new insight to ideas and questions surrounding race. She does this in part by reframing ART, as medical technologies that also act as technologies of kinship. Thinking about race in terms of technology brings together the common academic insight that race is a social construction with the equally important insight that race is a political tool used in different contexts for a variety of ends. As Russell explores ideas about race through their role in ART, she brings together social and political views to shift debates from what race is to what race does, how it is used, and what effects it has had in the world.

Over the past 10 years, studies have shown that the rates of fertility vary in different ethnic groups. Ethnic differences also play a significant role in the outcome of assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles. In the United States, minority groups--African Americans, Hispanics (mainly Mexicans and Central Americans), East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Philippinos) and South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, and Bengalis)--have significantly lower chances of live births compared to Caucasian women. Birth outcome data collected by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology shows a worsening trend in conception rates between the years 1999-2000 and 2004-2006, raising more concern that the disparity in fertility rates between minority groups and white women is widening over time. This comprehensive book serves to answer the questions that arise when managing infertility in a multi-ethnic population. An expert assembly of key leaders in the field of reproductive medicine imparts insight and clinical experience in order to identify and analyze the possible causes of racial disparities in fertility outcome. Some of the reviewed causes include higher Body Mass Index (BMI), tubal diseases, metabolic syndrome, and fibroids in African Americans; tubal disease and higher early pregnancy loss in Hispanics; higher incidence of diminished ovarian reserve and lower BMI in East Asians; and higher incidence of polycystic ovarian disease (PCOS) in South Asians. The book also provides a review of data on access to care and ART services in developing countries. A thoughtful combination of evidence-based medicine and advanced treatment options, this book is sure to distinguish itself as the definitive reference on ethnic differences in assisted reproduction. ​

Worldwide, over 75 million people are involuntarily childless, a devastating experience for many with significant consequences for the social and psychological well-being of women in particular. Despite greater levels of infertility and strong cultural meanings attached to having children, little attention has been paid politically or academically to the needs of minority ethnic women and men. This groundbreaking volume is the first to highlight the ways in which diverse ethnic, cultural and religious identities impact upon understandings of technological solutions for infertility and associated treatment experiences within Western societies. It offers a corrective to the dominance of the narratives of hegemonic groups in infertility research. The collection begins with a discussion of fertility prevalence and access to treatment for minorities in the West and considers some of the key methodological challenges for social research on ethnicity and infertility. Drawing on primary research from the US, the UK, Eire, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia, the book then turns the spotlight onto the ways in which minority status and cultural and religious mores might impact on the experience of infertility and assisted reproductive technologies. It argues that more equitable access to culturally competent assisted conception services should be an essential component of a transformatory politics of infertility.

Focuses on the practice of cross-racial gestational surrogacy, in which a woman--through in-vitro fertilization using the sperm and egg of intended parents or donors--carries a pregnancy for intended parents of a different race. Concentrating on the racial differences between parents and surrogates, Harrison is interested in how reproductive technologies intersect with race, particularly when brown bodies produce white babies. She provides an interdisciplinary analysis that includes legal cases of contested surrogacy, historical examples of surrogacy as a form of racialized reproductive labor, the role of genetics in the assisted reproduction industry, and the recent turn toward reproductive tourism. --From publisher description.

Focuses on the practice of cross-racial gestational surrogacy, in which a woman--through in-vitro fertilization using the sperm and egg of intended parents or donors--carries a pregnancy for intended parents of a different race. Concentrating on the racial differences between parents and surrogates, Harrison is interested in how reproductive technologies intersect with race, particularly when brown bodies produce white babies. She provides an interdisciplinary analysis that includes legal cases of contested surrogacy, historical examples of surrogacy as a form of racialized reproductive labor, the role of genetics in the assisted reproduction industry, and the recent turn toward reproductive tourism. --From publisher description.

A provocative examination of how unequal access to reproductive technology replays the sins of the eugenics movement Eugenics, the effort to improve the human species by inhibiting reproduction of “inferior” genetic strains, ultimately came to be regarded as the great shame of the Progressive movement. Judith Daar, a prominent expert on the intersection of law and medicine, argues that current attitudes toward the potential users of modern assisted reproductive technologies threaten to replicate eugenics’ same discriminatory practices. In this book, Daar asserts how barriers that block certain people’s access to reproductive technologies are often founded on biases rooted in notions of class, race, and marital status. As a result, poor, minority, unmarried, disabled, and LGBT individuals are denied technologies available to well-off nonminority heterosexual applicants. An original argument on a highly emotional and important issue, this work offers a surprising departure from more familiar arguments on the issue as it warns physicians, government agencies, and the general public against repeating the mistakes of the past.