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Siermann M, Valcke O, Vermeesch JR, Raivio T, Tšuiko O, Borry P. "Are we not going too far?": Socio-ethical considerations of preimplantation genetic testing using polygenic risk scores according to healthcare professionals. Soc Sci Med 2024; 343:116599. [PMID: 38244362 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116599] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2023] [Revised: 01/08/2024] [Accepted: 01/11/2024] [Indexed: 01/22/2024]
Abstract
The recent introduction of polygenic risk scores within preimplantation genetic testing (PGT-P) has been met with many concerns. To get more insights into the perspectives of relevant stakeholders on the socio-ethical aspects of PGT-P, an interview study with 31 healthcare professionals involved in reproductive medicine and genetics in Europe and North-America was performed. Healthcare professionals in our study were concerned that PGT-P was going too far in terms of selection, with regards to both medical conditions and non-medical traits. Healthcare professionals were worried about the ethical 'slippery slope' of PGT-P, the increasing medicalization of reproductive health, the commercial context of PGT-P, and potential stigmatization and discrimination. There were also concerns that the availability and the 'technological imperative' of PGT-P could lead to pressure and a sense of responsibility for parents to use PGT-P. Additionally, it could cause new anxieties about the child's health before the child has even been born. Since PGT-P provides polygenic risk scores before birth, the autonomy of the child has to be considered. These socio-ethical concerns heighten existing debates regarding reproductive genetic technologies and show that the specifics of PGT-P make this screening option especially ethically controversial.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Siermann
- Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 7 - Box 7001, 3000, Leuven, Belgium; Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Haartmaninkatu 8 (P.O. Box 63), 00014, Helsinki, Finland.
| | - Ophelia Valcke
- Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 7 - Box 7001, 3000, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Joris Robert Vermeesch
- Laboratory for Cytogenetics and Genome Research, Department of Human Genetics, KU Leuven, ON1 Herestraat 49 - Bus 606, 3000, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Taneli Raivio
- Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Haartmaninkatu 8 (P.O. Box 63), 00014, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Olga Tšuiko
- Laboratory for Cytogenetics and Genome Research, Department of Human Genetics, KU Leuven, ON1 Herestraat 49 - Bus 606, 3000, Leuven, Belgium; Reproductive Genetics Unit, Center for Human Genetics, UZ Leuven, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Pascal Borry
- Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 7 - Box 7001, 3000, Leuven, Belgium
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Bowman-Smart H, Gyngell C, Mand C, Amor DJ, Delatycki MB, Savulescu J. Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing for "Non-Medical" Traits: Ensuring Consistency in Ethical Decision-Making. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BIOETHICS : AJOB 2023; 23:3-20. [PMID: 34846986 PMCID: PMC7614328 DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2021.1996659] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/19/2023]
Abstract
The scope of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) could expand in the future to include detailed analysis of the fetal genome. This will allow for the testing for virtually any trait with a genetic contribution, including "non-medical" traits. Here we discuss the potential use of NIPT for these traits. We outline a scenario which highlights possible inconsistencies with ethical decision-making. We then discuss the case against permitting these uses. The objections include practical problems; increasing inequities; increasing the burden of choice; negative impacts on the child, family, and society; and issues with implementation. We then outline the case for permitting the use of NIPT for these traits. These include arguments for reproductive liberty and autonomy; questioning the labeling of traits as "non-medical"; and the principle of procreative beneficence. This summary of the case for and against can serve as a basis for the development of a consistent and coherent ethical framework.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hilary Bowman-Smart
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
- Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia
- Corresponding author: Hilary Bowman-Smart Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, 50 Flemington Rd, Parkville Victoria Australia 3052, , (03) 8341 6200
| | - Christopher Gyngell
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
- Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia
| | - Cara Mand
- Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia
| | - David J. Amor
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
- Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia
- Victorian Clinical Genetics Services, Parkville, Australia
| | - Martin B. Delatycki
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
- Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia
- Victorian Clinical Genetics Services, Parkville, Australia
| | - Julian Savulescu
- Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia
- Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
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Lasunción S, García Arregui A. La edad molecular: reimaginando la vejez desde laboratorios de experimentación en telómeros. QUADERNS DE L'INSTITUT CATALÀ D'ANTROPOLOGIA 2023. [DOI: 10.56247/qua.389] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/30/2023]
Abstract
El proceso conocido como “envejecimiento celular” se manifiesta en el acortamiento de los telómeros, que son los extremos de los cromosomas. En las últimas décadas, la posibilidad de la manipulación genética para preservar la longitud de los telómeros ha suscitado formas de pensar el envejecimiento como un proceso maleable y aplazable. Mediante una etnografía de los laboratorios de telómeros y su entorno de divulgación científica, aquí trazamos la emergencia de una “biopolítica molecular” (Rose, 2007) que desestabiliza la idea de una edad lineal y “cronológica”. En su lugar, se plantea una edad “biológica” que, siendo relativa a la longitud y velocidad de acortamiento de los telómeros, puede ser medida y manipulada a nivel micrométrico. Aquí describimos cómo la manipulación molecular de la edad se despliega junto a una intrínseca patologización de la vejez. Como consecuencia, la episteme y práctica biomédica transitan del objetivo de “curar” enfermedades hacia el de la optimización de la fisiología celular para frenar el envejecimiento. La huella del tiempo en el cuerpo deja de ser entendida como un proceso “natural”, y pasa re-imaginarse como un “fallo técnico”, accidental y corregible.
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van Wichelen S, de Leeuw M. Biolegality: How Biology and Law Redefine Sociality. ANNUAL REVIEW OF ANTHROPOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-041520-102305] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
As an empirical concept, biolegality emerged at the height of biotechnological advances in Euro-American societies when rapid changes in the life sciences (including molecular biology, immunology, and the neurosciences) and their attendant techniques (including reproductive technologies and gene editing) started to challenge ethical norms, legal decisions, and legal forms. As a theoretical concept, biolegality deepens the Foucauldian notion of biopolitics with an operation of legality that emphasizes how biology and its attendant technologies alter legal form, knowledge, practice, and experience. These empirical and theoretical developments affect how we understand sociality. While public discourse remains preoccupied with the call for more regulation—thereby underscoring law's lag in its dealings with technology—the social science scholarship describes instead how bioscience and biotechnology are fragmenting and rearranging legal knowledge about property, personhood, parenthood, and collective identity. As it opens broader anthropological debates around exchange, self, kinship, and community, the study of biolegality brings a novel currency to the discipline, addressing how biology and law inform new ways of relating and knowing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sonja van Wichelen
- School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Marc de Leeuw
- Faculty of Law & Justice, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Monroe KV. Planning for the Family in Qatar: Religion, Ethics, and the Politics of Assisted Reproduction. ETHNOS 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2022.2057563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
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Abstract
ZusammenfassungDie breite Einführung nicht-invasiver pränataler Tests (NIPT) sowie die Ausweitung der Testziele über Trisomien hinaus machen es notwendig, Sinn und Ziel der pränatalen Diagnostik (PND) als emergente soziale Praxis grundsätzlich zu diskutieren. Wenn, wie angenommen wird, PND nicht zu eugenischen Zwecken, sondern zur Stärkung der Autonomie dienen soll, muss gefragt werden, welche Bedeutung die Entscheidungen haben, ein bestimmtes zukünftiges Kind (nicht) zu gebären. Stephen Wilkinson hat vorgeschlagen, PND als eine Form „selektiver Reproduktion“ zu verstehen. In diesem Paper wird geprüft, ob die Charakterisierung der Entscheidung nach PND als „Selektion“ zutrifft und welche moralischen Vorannahmen ihr zugrunde liegen.Es zeigt sich, dass das Konzept der „selektiven Reproduktion“ die Handlungen der PND inakkurat repräsentiert. Es beinhaltet zudem sowohl eine Abstrahierung als auch eine Distanzierung. Es nimmt an, dass Frauen und Paare entweder falls nötig mehrere Schwangerschaften planen, um ein gesundes Kind zu erzeugen, oder sich als Ausführende einer selektiven Strategie auf der Populationsebene verstehen. Die Einschränkung der ethischen Diskussion auf das Problem der Selektion verdeckt zwei wichtige Problemfelder, die die konflikthaltige Situation der PND aus der Perspektive der Frau oder des Paares charakterisieren: die Schwangerschaft als persönliche Beziehung und den Akt des Abbruchs der Schwangerschaft. Aufgrund seiner impliziten Normativität wird „selektive Fortpflanzung“ als sinnvolle Bezeichnung für die Praxis der PND zurückgewiesen.
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Boydell V, Dow K. Adjusting the analytical aperture: propositions for an integrated approach to the social study of reproductive technologies. BIOSOCIETIES 2021; 17:732-757. [PMID: 34426746 PMCID: PMC8374034 DOI: 10.1057/s41292-021-00240-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
The ever-expanding availability of reproductive technologies, the continued roll-out of 'family planning' and maternity services across low- and middle-income settings and the rapid development of the fertility industry mean that it is more likely than ever that individuals, especially women and gender non-conforming people, will engage with more than one RT at some point in their life. These multiple engagements with RTs will affect users' expectations and uptake, as well as the technologies' availability, commercial success, ethical status and social meanings. We argue that an integrated approach to the study of RTs and their users not only makes for better research, but also more politically conscious research, which questions some of the ideological precepts that have led to reproduction being parcelled out into biomedical specialisations and a disproportionate focus on particular forms of reproduction in particular disciplines within public health and social science research. We offer this article as part of a wider movement in the study of reproduction and reproductive technologies, which takes inspiration from the reproductive justice framework to address forms of exclusion, discrimination and stratification that are perpetuated in the development and application of reproductive technologies and the ways in which they are studied and theorised.
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Affiliation(s)
- Victoria Boydell
- The Graduate Institute, Geneva (IHEID), Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2A, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Katharine Dow
- University of Cambridge, 16 Mill Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1SB UK
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8
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The politics of Danish IVF: reproducing the nation by making parents through selective reproductive technologies. BIOSOCIETIES 2021. [DOI: 10.1057/s41292-020-00217-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
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Changing Fertility Landscapes: Exploring the Reproductive Routes and Choices of Fertility Patients from China for Assisted Reproduction in Russia. Asian Bioeth Rev 2021; 13:7-22. [PMID: 33456546 PMCID: PMC7797492 DOI: 10.1007/s41649-020-00156-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2020] [Revised: 09/17/2020] [Accepted: 11/19/2020] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Global reproductive landscapes and with them cross-border routes are rapidly changing. This paper examines the reproductive routes and choices of fertility travellers from China to Russia as reported by medical professionals and fertility service providers. Providing new empirical data, it raises new ethical questions on the facilitation of cross-border reproductive travel and the commercialisation of reproductive treatment. The relaxation of the one-child policy in 2014 in China, the increasing demand for ART exceeding the capacity of national fertility clinics and the difficulty of accessing treatment with donor eggs concomitant with a growing economic power of the upper–middle class are shaping the ART industry in Asia in new ways. A new development is Chinese citizens increasingly seeking ART treatment in Russia, which has a long-standing practice of ART governed by a liberal legislation. Furthermore, as China prohibits the export of gametes, Chinese fertility travellers rely on acquiring donor gametes once starting treatment abroad. Clinicians in Russia report three strategies amongst their Chinese patients: One group is using donor eggs of women of Asian appearance living in Russia or is hiring women of resembling appearance from third-party countries to donate their eggs in Russia to create resemblance in their offspring. Another group is buying white donor gametes to create Eurasian mixed children and thus ‘enhance’ their offspring. Providing novel empirical data, this article informs ethical deliberation and raises imminent questions for further research in this understudied geographic region and on cross-border reproductive treatment.
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Inhorn MC. Reprint: Where has the quest for conception taken us? Lessons from anthropology and sociology. REPRODUCTIVE BIOMEDICINE & SOCIETY ONLINE 2020; 11:110-121. [PMID: 34136666 PMCID: PMC8178439 DOI: 10.1016/j.rbms.2021.03.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2019] [Revised: 04/04/2020] [Accepted: 04/20/2020] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
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 heart-breaking 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 trajectories - namely, 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.
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Cromer R. 'Our family picture is a little hint of heaven': race, religion and selective reproduction in US 'embryo adoption'. REPRODUCTIVE BIOMEDICINE & SOCIETY ONLINE 2020; 11:9-17. [PMID: 32995579 PMCID: PMC7509167 DOI: 10.1016/j.rbms.2020.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2020] [Revised: 05/23/2020] [Accepted: 08/04/2020] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
People use selective reproductive technologies (SRT) in various family-making practices to assist with decisions about which children should be born. The practice of 'embryo adoption', a form of embryo donation developed by white American evangelical Christians in the late 1990s, is a novel site for reconceptualizing SRT and examining how they function among users. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2008 and 2018 on US 'embryo adoption', this study provides an anthropological analysis of media produced by and about one white evangelical couple's race-specific preferences for embryos from donors of colour. This article shows how racializing processes and religious beliefs function as mutually reinforcing SRT for some 'embryo adoption' participants. Evangelical convictions justify racialized preferences, and racializing processes within and beyond the church reinforce religious acts. Race-specific preferences for embryos among white evangelicals promote selective decision-making not for particular kinds of children, a current focus in studies of SRT, but for particular kinds of families. This study expands the framework of SRT to include selection for wanted family forms and technologies beyond biomedical techniques, such as social technologies like racial constructs and religious convictions. Broadly, this article encourages greater attention to religion within analyses about race and reproduction by revealing how they are deeply entwined with Christianity, especially in the USA. Wherever constructions of race and religious convictions co-exist with selective reproductive decision-making, scholars should consider race, reproduction and religion as inextricable, rather than distinct, domains of analysis.
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12
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Rebay-Salisbury K, Janker L, Pany-Kucera D, Schuster D, Spannagl-Steiner M, Waltenberger L, Salisbury RB, Kanz F. Child murder in the Early Bronze Age: proteomic sex identification of a cold case from Schleinbach, Austria. ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES 2020; 12:265. [PMID: 33123298 PMCID: PMC7584537 DOI: 10.1007/s12520-020-01199-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2019] [Accepted: 09/08/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
The identification of sex-specific peptides in human tooth enamel by nanoflow liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (nanoLC-MS/MS) represents a quantum leap for the study of childhood and social relations more generally. Determining sex-related differences in prehistoric child rearing and mortality has been hampered by the insufficient accuracy in determining the biological sex of juveniles. We conducted mass spectrometric analysis to identify sex-specific peptides in the dental enamel of a child from a settlement pit of the Early Bronze Age settlement of Schleinbach, Austria (c. 1950-1850 bc). Four perimortal impression fractures on the skull of a 5-6-year-old child indicate an intentional killing, with a co-buried loom weight as possible murder weapon. Proteomic analysis, conducted for the first time on prehistoric teeth in Austria, determined the child's sex as male. While we cannot conclusively determine whether the child was the victim of conflicts between village groups or was slain by members of his own community, we suggest that contextual evidence points to the latter. A possible trigger of violence was the follow-on effects of an uncontrolled middle ear infection revealed by an osteological analysis. The boy from Schleinbach highlights the potential for further investigation of gender-biased violence, infanticide and child murder based on the recently developed method of proteomic sex identification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
- Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstraße 11–13, 1020 Vienna, Austria
| | - Lukas Janker
- Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 38, 1090 Vienna, Austria
| | - Doris Pany-Kucera
- Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstraße 11–13, 1020 Vienna, Austria
- Department of Anthropology, Natural History Museum, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria
| | - Dina Schuster
- Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 38, 1090 Vienna, Austria
| | - Michaela Spannagl-Steiner
- Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstraße 11–13, 1020 Vienna, Austria
- Department of Anthropology, Natural History Museum, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria
| | - Lukas Waltenberger
- Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstraße 11–13, 1020 Vienna, Austria
| | - Roderick B. Salisbury
- Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstraße 11–13, 1020 Vienna, Austria
- Institute of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, University of Vienna, Franz-Klein-Gasse 1, 1190 Vienna, Austria
| | - Fabian Kanz
- Center for Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Sensengasse 2, 1090 Vienna, Austria
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13
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Inhorn MC. Where has the quest for conception taken us? Lessons from anthropology and sociology. REPRODUCTIVE BIOMEDICINE & SOCIETY ONLINE 2020; 10:46-57. [PMID: 32760816 PMCID: PMC7393315 DOI: 10.1016/j.rbms.2020.04.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2019] [Revised: 04/04/2020] [Accepted: 04/20/2020] [Indexed: 05/29/2023]
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 heart-breaking 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 trajectories - namely, 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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcia C Inhorn
- Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
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14
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15
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Navne LE, Svendsen MN. Life-and-Death Decisions in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Denmark: The Discrete Authority of Origin Stories. ETHNOS 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2018.1431951] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Laura E. Navne
- University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- VIVE – The National Centre of Applied Social Science, Denmark
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16
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Prenatal Diagnosis, Surveillance and Risk. Reproduction 2018. [DOI: 10.1017/9781107705647.047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
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17
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Pinar C, Almeling R, Gadarian SK. Does genetic risk for common adult diseases influence reproductive plans? Evidence from a national survey experiment in the United States. Soc Sci Med 2018; 218:62-68. [PMID: 30342233 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.09.049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2018] [Revised: 09/19/2018] [Accepted: 09/24/2018] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
Prospective parents have long been able to learn details about their offspring's DNA, and social scientists have demonstrated that this form of genetic information influences reproductive decision-making. Now, new tests offer adults information about their own genetic risk for common diseases that begin later in life, raising new questions about whether this kind of personal risk will also affect fertility plans. Drawing on a survey experiment (N = 223) that assigned individuals a genetic risk (20%, 30% … 80%) for an adult-onset disease (heart disease, colon cancer, Alzheimer's Disease), this study examines whether such risks lead people to reconsider their plans to have children. Bringing together qualitative research on genetic risk and reproductive decision-making with demographic analyses of uncertainty and fertility, we find that when assigned a hypothetical genetic risk for a common adult-onset disease, childless individuals who plan to have children in the future are unlikely to reconsider those plans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Candas Pinar
- Yale University, PO Box 208265, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
| | - Rene Almeling
- Yale University, PO Box 208265, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
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19
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Chattoo S. Inherited blood disorders, genetic risk and global public health: framing 'birth defects' as preventable in India. Anthropol Med 2018. [PMID: 29533092 DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2017.1381231] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
This paper engages critically with the global assemblage framing sickle cell and thalassaemia disorders as a 'global health crisis'; and the promise of genomics, largely DNA-based carrier/pre-conceptual screening, prenatal diagnosis with a view to terminations, deployed in framing a solution to these historically racialised spectrum of diseases as essentially preventable. Sickle cell and thalassaemia are recessively inherited, potentially life-threatening haemoglobin disorders with significant variation of severity, often needing life-long treatment. I argue that the re-classification of inherited blood disorders (IBDs) under 'prevention and management of birth defects' by the WHO in 2010 can be read as an ethical moment within the 'globalising turn' of IBDs and the use of genomics in addressing structural inequalities underpinning health in low- and middle-income countries. Using an Indian case study, the paper aims at first examining the language of risk through which genes and IBDs are mapped onto pre-existing populations (e.g. caste and tribe) as discrete, categories. Second, it discusses the likely social and ethical ramifications of classifying these recessive gene disorders as essentially preventable, despite cheaply available diagnostic tests and treatment options available in most countries in the South.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sangeeta Chattoo
- a Department of Health Sciences , University of York , York , United Kingdom
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20
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Fitzgerald RP, Wardell S, Legge M. Fetal genetic difference and a cosmopolitan vernacular of the right to choose. WOMENS STUDIES INTERNATIONAL FORUM 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2017.04.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
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Stephenson N, Mills C, McLeod K. “Simply providing information”: Negotiating the ethical dilemmas of obstetric ultrasound, prenatal testing and selective termination of pregnancy. FEMINISM & PSYCHOLOGY 2017. [DOI: 10.1177/0959353516679688] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Obstetric ultrasound is key to opposing ways of valuing foetuses, that is, both to the ascription of foetal personhood and to foetal selection and termination of pregnancy. Whilst ultrasound images are increasingly common within the public sphere there has been relatively little public discussion of its role in identifying actual or potential foetal anomaly and the consequences of this. This paper examines how professionals working with obstetric ultrasound encounter, navigate and make sense of the different uses of this technology. Professionals commonly delineate their work (as providing information) from women’s autonomous choices. Emphasising “women’s choice” can obscure consideration of different collective ways of valuing foetuses with anomalies. It can also deflect consideration of the fundamentally ambiguous information that ultrasound can produce. Distinguishing information from choice is underpinned by a questionable fact–value distinction. We describe alternate professional practices which involve questioning these binaries and foregrounding clinicians’ responsibilities for women’s current and future experience. Public discussion of ultrasound’s different roles in valuing foetuses would be enriched if the discourses and practices shaping professionals’ attempts to facilitate ethical decision-making were included for collective consideration.
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Wahlberg A. The birth and routinization of IVF in China. REPRODUCTIVE BIOMEDICINE & SOCIETY ONLINE 2016; 2:97-107. [PMID: 29892722 PMCID: PMC5991882 DOI: 10.1016/j.rbms.2016.09.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2015] [Revised: 07/06/2016] [Accepted: 09/14/2016] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
How can it be that China, with its history of restrictive family planning policies, is today home to some of the world's largest IVF clinics, carrying out as many as 30,000 cycles annually? This article addresses how IVF was developed in China during the early 1980s, becoming routinized at the same time as one of the world's most comprehensive family planning programmes aimed at preventing birth was being rolled out. IVF was not merely imported into China; rather it was experimentally developed within China into a form suitable for its restrictive family planning regulations. As a result, IVF and other procedures of assisted reproductive technology have settled alongside contraception, sterilization and abortion as yet another technology of birth control.
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Abstract
Studies on reproductive technologies often examine women's reproductive lives in terms of choice and control. Drawing on 48 accounts of procreative experiences of religiously devout Jewish women in Israel and the US, we examine their attitudes, understandings and experiences of pregnancy, reproductive technologies and prenatal testing. We suggest that the concept of hishtadlut-"obligatory effort"-works as an explanatory model that organizes Haredi women's reproductive careers and their negotiations of reproductive technologies. As an elastic category with negotiable and dynamic boundaries, hishtadlut gives ultra-orthodox Jewish women room for effort without the assumption of control; it allows them to exercise discretion in relation to medical issues without framing their efforts in terms of individual choice. Haredi women hold themselves responsible for making their obligatory effort and not for pregnancy outcomes. We suggest that an alternative paradigm to autonomous choice and control emerges from cosmological orders where reproductive duties constitute "obligatory choices."
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Ville I, Mirlesse V. Prenatal diagnosis: From policy to practice. Two distinct ways of managing prognostic uncertainty and anticipating disability in Brazil and in France. Soc Sci Med 2015; 141:19-26. [PMID: 26233297 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.07.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2015] [Revised: 07/16/2015] [Accepted: 07/17/2015] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Prenatal diagnosis (PND) has gradually established itself as part of the pregnancy monitoring process, with a view to reducing the number of births of children exposed to disability by combining the use of biomedical tools with laws that authorise abortion in cases of foetal pathology. This article looks at how laws which vary from one country to another modulate the way in which PND practices are organised on a daily basis, determine the discourse of practitioners and lead them to adopt specific stances during prenatal consultations with couples coping with a foetal anomaly. We present a comparative ethnographic study, which took place between 2009 and 2011 in France and Brazil, in reference units, based on observation of consultations, professional meetings, and interviews with health practitioners. The fact that access to abortion due to foetal pathology is possible in France, and criminalised in Brazil, conditions how doctors analyse the framework of their medical practice and approach the issue of disability with couples during consultations. In France, practitioners would appear to be satisfied with a professional framework that they themselves created. Faced with prognostic uncertainty, the legal obligation to inform encourages them to discuss all of the potential complications of the diagnosed anomalies and leads them to provide probabilistic information about the life of the child to be, supported by evidence-based medicine. In Brazil, in the public service, the lack of access to abortion has created a malaise among practitioners who criticise this impediment to the objective nature of their practice and to the quality of the information that they provide. Some use prognostic uncertainty to direct the thoughts of women and couples towards the dynamics proper to each individual human trajectory within a given family and a specific social environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Isabelle Ville
- Centre de Recherche Médecine, Sciences, Santé, Santé mentale, Société Cermes3, Site CNRS, 7, rue Guy Môquet, 94801 Villejuif Cedex, France
| | - Véronique Mirlesse
- Centre de Recherche Médecine, Sciences, Santé, Santé mentale, Société Cermes3, Site CNRS, 7, rue Guy Môquet, 94801 Villejuif Cedex, France.
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Fitzgerald RP, Legge M, Park J. Choice, Rights, and Virtue: Prenatal Testing and Styles of Moral Reasoning in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Med Anthropol Q 2015; 29:400-17. [PMID: 25940875 DOI: 10.1111/maq.12217] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Using a Foucauldian biopower analytic, this article combines insights from several ethnographic research projects around the moral reasoning styles underpinning debates over selective reproductive technologies in Aotearoa/New Zealand. We show that divergent or shared public, private, state, individual, and community moral reasoning styles become highly politicized truth discourses that have the potential to, and at times do, affect one another, modifying a dominant, state-supported, principal-based bioethics framework. The styles of moral reasoning that we identify pivot on an aspirational cultural ideal of the provision of choice to citizens, which is taken as an appropriate position from which to regulate selective reproductive technologies.
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Svendsen MN. Selective Reproduction: Social and Temporal Imaginaries for Negotiating the Value of Life in Human and Animal Neonates. Med Anthropol Q 2014; 29:178-95. [DOI: 10.1111/maq.12149] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Mette N. Svendsen
- Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies; Department of Public Health; University of Copenhagen
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29
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Healthy citizenship beyond autonomy and discipline: Tactical engagements with genetic testing. BIOSOCIETIES 2014. [DOI: 10.1057/biosoc.2014.29] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
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