Where has the quest for conception taken us? Lessons from anthropology and sociology

Abstract

Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby, was born more than 40 years ago in England. For Louise Brown's infertile mother, Lesley, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) was the 'hope technology' which allowed her to overcome her tubal infertility after 9 years of heartbreaking involuntary childlessness. Since then, IVF has travelled to diverse global locations, where millions of individuals and couples have embarked on technologically assisted 'quests for conception'. After 40 years of IVF, where has the quest for conception taken us? This article outlines seven major global trajectoriesnamely, that the quest for conception has become more: (i) technological, because of a profusion of IVF-based innovations; (ii) masculine, because of men's eager uptake of intracytoplasmic sperm injection, their own 'masculine hope technology'; (iii) stratified, due to persistent race-and class-based barriers in IVF access; (iv) transnational, as infertile and other involuntarily childless people search across borders to overcome restrictions in their home countries; (v) selective, as IVF-based reprogenetic technologies eliminate genetic disease while exacerbating sex selection; (vi) moral, as religious sensibilities both accommodate and curtail the possibilities and outcomes of assisted reproductive technology (ART); and (vii) extended, as new cryopreservation technologies prolong the reproductive lifespan and extend reproduction to the transgender community. The article concludes with thoughts on where future quests for conception might take us, and why IVF and other reproductive technologies are 'good to think with' in both the anthropology and sociology of reproduction.

Cryopreserving Jewish Motherhood: Egg Freezing in Israel and the United States

“…Pronatalist religious pressures to pursue egg freezing appear to be emerging in other contexts as well, as shown for some Muslim and observant Christian women (Inhorn et al 2020). Thus, future studies of egg freezing must be conducted in multiple national and religious contexts to assess how religious moralities and community-based social pressures factor into single women's "quests for conception" through egg freezing (Inhorn 2020). Such studies will also contribute to the rich anthropological scholarship on the symbolic importance and value of eggs to women's reproduction, begun by Emily Martin (1987Martin ( , 1991 and carried forward by anthropologists working in numerous global settings (see Inhorn andInhorn 2020 for overviews).…”

Disrupting the biological clock: Fertility benefits, egg freezing and proactive fertility management

“…A recent survey showed that almost all infertility physicians identified cost as the largest barrier to care and, unsurprisingly, this translated into a stratification of (assisted) reproduction across familiar lines of race- and class-based social hierarchies ( McLaughlin et al, 2018 ). The average cost for a US IVF cycle is approximately four times the global average, and currently amounts to around $23,474 ( FertilityIQ., 2020b , Inhorn, 2020 ). As of April 2021, only 19 of 51 states require some form of insurance coverage for infertility treatment, and only 11 states have laws for coverage of fertility preservation for medically induced infertility ( Resolve, 2021 ).…”

“…chemotherapy). In the USA, the vast majority of people undergoing IVF or egg freezing pay out of pocket ( Inhorn, 2020 , Mohapatra, 2014 ). However, even those women who do have health insurance find that they still have significant out-of-pocket expenses for egg freezing after a serious diagnosis.…”

Отношение Жителей Мегаполиса К Репродуктивному Донорству (На Примере Екатеринбурга)

“…Тем не менее применение донорского материала в репродукции человека остается одной из самых спорных репродуктивных тех нологий [Beeson, Darnovsky, Lippman, 2015]. Как и многие аспекты исследований в науках о жизни (например, исследования и использование стволовых клеток, исследования генома человека и манипуляция генами) использование репро дуктивных технологий затрагивает основы миропонимания и самопонимания человека, поэтому вызывает неприятие и враждебность со стороны разного рода традиционалистов [Forman Rabinovic, Sommer, 2018;Mathieu, 2020], а также боль шое количество споров о юридической субъектности, правах, равенстве и дру гих политико правовых проблемах [Inhorn, 2020;Ferraretti et al, 2010;Merchant, 2020]. Таким образом, отношение общества к репродуктивному донорству требует, на наш взгляд, более детального изучения.…”