Reconfiguring Reproduction: Feminist Health Perspectives on Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Whether it is in-vitro fertilization, sperm injection, surrogacy, cryopreservation, or intrauterine insemination, assisted reproductive technology (ART) has revolutionized our understanding of pregnancy, birth, infertility, and women's bodies. Viewed by some as a technological quick-fix for infertility, ARTs create both challenges and opportunities, and responses to them have sought to balance questions of ethics, rights, and politics. With essays by eminent academics and activists, Reconfiguring Reproduction examines the ART industry by bringing a feminist health lens to bear on the experiences of women in countries such as Korea, Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, India, and others. In essays focused on the expansion of the industry, the gendered nature of the burden and treatment of infertility, the destabilization of the family as we know it, and feminist debates around surrogacy that reassess ideas of agency and commodification, Reconfiguring Reproduction charts a fast-changing and highly politically charged area, where commerce, medical technology, ethics, and ideology intersect. See more