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Assisted reproduction, with its test tubes, injections, and gamete donors, raises concerns about the nature of life and kinship. Yet these concerns do not take the same shape around the world. In this innovative ethnography of in vitro fertilization in Ecuador, Elizabeth F.S. Roberts explores how reproduction by way of biotechnological assistance is not only accepted but embraced despite widespread poverty and condemnation from the Catholic Church. Roberts' intimate portrait of IVF practitioners and their patients reveals how technological intervention is folded into an Andean understanding of reproduction as always assisted, whether through kin or God. She argues that the Ecuadorian incarnation of reproductive technology is less about a national desire for modernity than it is a product of colonial racial history, Catholic practice, and kinship configurations. God's Laboratory offers a grounded introduction to critical debates in medical anthropology and science studies, as well as a nuanced ethnography of the interplay between science, religion, race and history in the formation of Andean families.

More and more women are using IVF to try to get pregnant. But it is painful, expensive, and often does not work. Could new, more radical technologies eventually provide an answer?

From computer support and hotel reservations to laboratory results and radiographic interpretations, it seems everything can be ‘outsourced’ in our globalized world. One would not think so with parenthood, however, especially motherhood, as it is a fundamental activity humans have historically preserved as personal and private. In our modern age, however, the advent and accessibility of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and the ease with which they have traversed global borders, has fundamentally altered the meaning of childbearing and parenting. In the twenty-first century, parenthood is no longer achieved only through gestation, adoption, or traditional surrogacy, but also via assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), where science and technology play lead roles. Furthermore, in a globalized world economy, where the movement and transfer of people and commodities are increasing to serve the interests of capitalism, gamete donation and surrogate birth can traverse innumerable geographic, socio-economic, racialized, and political borderlands. Thus, reproduction itself can be outsourced. This edited volume explores one specific aspect of the new assisted reproductive technologies: gestational surrogacy and how its practice is changing the traditional concept of parenthood across the globe. The phenomenon of transnational surrogacy has given rise to a thriving international industry where money is being ‘legally’ exchanged for babies and ‘reproductive labor’ has taken on a lucrative commercial tone. Yet, law, research, and activism are barely aware of this experience and are still playing catch-up with rapidly changing on-the-ground realities. This interdisciplinary collection of essays assuages the dearth of knowledge and addresses significant issues in transnational commercial gestational surrogacy as it takes shape in a peculiar relation between the West (primarily the United States) and India.

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART), are innovative, non-coital medical procreative procedures, that have brought respite to a number of childless persons and couples, just as it also raises a number of ethical and medico-legal issues. A number of countries including Nigeria, are still struggling to find the appropriate legal framework to provide guidelines for this reproductive process to curtail inherent unethical practices associated with that development. The paper explores the available regulatory instruments in Nigeria and in cognate jurisdictions such as Australia and the United Kingdom, through a comparative study to ascertain the efficacy of the existing instruments in ensuring that unethical practices and abuses associated with ART are eradicated. The findings indicate that the regulatory instrument in Nigeria requires significant improvement in line with the legal frameworks in operation in the cognate jurisdictions to effectively guard against potential unethical practices and abuses associated with the application of ART. (Afr J Reprod Health 2020; 24[4]: 82-93). Les technologies de procréation assistée (TAR) sont des procédures médicales de procréation innovantes et non coïtales, qui ont apporté un répit à un certain nombre de personnes sans enfants et de couples, tout comme elles soulèvent un certain nombre de problèmes éthiques et médico-légaux. Un certain nombre de pays, dont le Nigéria, ont encore du mal à trouver le cadre juridique approprié pour fournir des directives pour ce processus de reproduction afin de réduire les pratiques contraires à l'éthique inhérentes à ce développement. Le document explore les instruments réglementaires disponibles au Nigéria et dans des juridictions apparentées telles que l'Australie et le Royaume-Uni, à travers une étude comparative pour vérifier l'efficacité des instruments existants pour garantir que les pratiques contraires à l'éthique et les abus associés aux TAR sont éradiqués. Les résultats indiquent que l'instrument réglementaire au Nigéria nécessite une amélioration significative conformément aux cadres juridiques en vigueur dans les juridictions apparentées pour se prémunir efficacement contre d'éventuelles pratiques contraires à l'éthique et les abus associés à l'application de l'ART. (Afr J Reprod Health 2020; 24[4]:82-93).

This book is about the psychological experiences of women and men who have used donor conception to create their families. The authors offer diverse accounts of their clinical, research, and personal experiences. They describe the challenge of powerful conscious and unconscious fantasies that can be aroused and how these may re-awaken early anxieties and developmental struggles.

The need to formulate practice guidelines and ethical framework to guide the practice of assisted conception in Nigeria has been highlighted severally. The Association for Fertility and Reproductive Health (AFRH) ethics committee is charged with the objective of producing ethical guidelines that would govern the practice of assisted conception in Nigeria. This study was a survey of attendees at the AFRH international conference that held in Abuja in September 2017. The aim of the study was to generate empirical data that would form the drafting of ethical practice guidelines in Nigeria. Ninety-seven (50%) of the respondents were of the view that performing IVF for unmarried couples was ethical while about 70 (36%) were of the contrary opinion. Respondents were equally divided (45.26% versus 44.21%) on the ethical standing of performing IVF for single ladies. About 128 (70.33%) of respondents agree that egg donors should be paid more in compensation besides reimbursement for personal expenditure incurred during the process of egg donation and that they should be an upper age limit for clients requesting ART with donor eggs. Several unethical practices ongoing in Nigeria were highlighted including inadequate provision of information and counselling and exploitation of egg donors. Majority agreed on the need for a regulatory framework to govern the practice of ART in Nigeria. The diverse range of views and ethical issues concerning ART practice in Nigeria obtained from this study demonstrates the need to recognise the local context in Nigeria when applying universal principles of ethics. (Afr J Reprod Health 2018; 22[3]: 51-58). La nécessité de formuler des directives de pratique et un cadre éthique pour guider la pratique de la conception assistée au Nigéria a été soulignée de manière distincte. Le comité d'éthique de l'Association pour la fécondité et la santé de la Reproduction (AFSR) a pour objectif de produire des directives éthiques régissant la pratique de la procréation assistée au Nigéria. Cette étude était une enquête auprès des participants à la conférence internationale de l'AFSR qui s'est tenue à Abuja en septembre 2017. L'objectif de l'étude était de générer des données empiriques qui constitueront la rédaction de lignes directrices sur les pratiques éthiques au Nigeria. Quatre-vingt-dix-sept pour cent (50%) des personnes interrogées étaient d'avis que l'exécution d'une FIV pour les couples non mariés était éthique, tandis qu'environ 70 (36%) étaient d'avis contraire. Les personnes interrogées étaient également divisées (45,26% contre 44,21%) sur le plan éthique de la FIV pour les femmes célibataires. Environ 128 (70,33%) des personnes interrogées s'accordent à dire que les donneurs d'oeufs devraient recevoir une compensation plus importante que le remboursement des dépenses personnelles encourues pendant le processus de don d'ovules et qu'ils devraient avoir un âge limite pour ceux qui recherche de la TRA. Plusieurs pratiques contraires à l'éthique en cours au Nigéria ont été soulignées, notamment la fourniture insuffisante d'informations et de conseils et l'exploitation des donneurs d'oeufs. La majorité a reconnu la nécessité d'un cadre réglementaire régissant la pratique du traitement antirétroviral au Nigeria. La diversité des points de vue et des questions éthiques concernant la pratique du traitement antirétroviral au Nigeria, obtenue à partir de cette étude, démontre la nécessité de reconnaître le contexte local au Nigeria lors de l'application des principes universels d'éthique. (Afr J Reprod Health 2018; 22[3]: 51-58).

Icons of Life tells the engrossing and provocative story of an early twentieth-century undertaking, the Carnegie Institution of Washington's project to collect thousands of embryos for scientific study. Lynn M. Morgan blends social analysis, sleuthing, and humor to trace the history of specimen collecting. In the process, she illuminates how a hundred-year-old scientific endeavor continues to be felt in today's fraught arena of maternal and fetal politics. Until the embryo collecting project-which she follows from the Johns Hopkins anatomy department, through Baltimore foundling homes, and all the way to China-most people had no idea what human embryos looked like. But by the 1950s, modern citizens saw in embryos an image of \"ourselves unborn,\" and embryology had developed a biologically based story about how we came to be. Morgan explains how dead specimens paradoxically became icons of life, how embryos were generated as social artifacts separate from pregnant women, and how a fetus thwarted Gertrude Stein's medical career. By resurrecting a nearly forgotten scientific project, Morgan sheds light on the roots of a modern origin story and raises the still controversial issue of how we decide what embryos mean.

This book is a multi-disciplinary collection of essays from leading researchers and practitioners,exploring legal, ethical, social, psychological and practical aspects of surrogate motherhood in Britain and abroad. It highlights the common themes that characterise debates across countries as well as exploring the many differences in policies and practices. Surrogacy raises questions for medical and welfare practitioners and dilemmas for policy makers as well as ethical issues of concern to society as a whole. The international perspective adopted by this book offers an opportunity for questions of law, policy and practice to be shared and debated across countries. The book links contemporary views from research and practice with broader social issues and bio-ethical debates. The book will be of interest to an international audience of academics and their students (in law, social policy, reproductive medicine, psychology and sociology), practitioners (including doctors, counsellors, midwives and welfare professionals) as well as those involved in policy-making and implementation.

This is the first book ever to consider in depth why people want children, and specifically why people want children produced by reproductive technologies (such as IVF, ICSI, etc.). As this book demonstrates, most other books ostensibly devoted to this topic tend to start with the assumption that the reason is either simply a biological drive to reproduce, or a socially instilled desire. This book uses psychoanalysis not to provide an answer in its own right, but as an analytic tool to probe more deeply the problems of these assumptions. The idea that reproductive technologies simply supply an “own” child is questioned in this volume in terms of asking how and why reproductive technologies are seen to create this “ownness”. How are ideas of genetics, “blood”, the family, and relatedness created and consumed? Given that it is the idea of an “own” child that underpins and justifies the whole use of reproductive technologies, this book is a crucial and wholly original intervention in this complex and highly topical area.

This book contributes in an important way to the psychoanalytic understanding and impact of Assisted Reproductive Technology on a majority of patients who have difficulties starting new families. Recent advances in reproductive technology and the increased use of techniques based upon it have created a need for psychoanalytic thinking and understanding of the psychological implications of Assisted reproductive procedures, in-vitro fertilization and other similar procedures. The recent and rapid advances in medical technologies confront us with a mandate in our clinical work to understand their complex impact on women, men, and children. However, attention to the intra psychic conflicts and traumatic experience of the use of such techniques has not been addressed in psychoanalytic literature. The developmental trauma and intra psychic conflicts of individuals using reproductive technologies are ubiquitous, yet it has been neglected as a topic of special interest in our clinical work.