Innovation at the Margins and Structural Change in Reproductive Technology

Excerpt

The Pursuit of Parenthood is a highly engaging account written by historian Margaret Marsh and physician Wanda Ronner that traces the medical, political and economic story of in vitro fertilization (IVF) from its early history to the present, including various auxiliary technologies. Scientists and clinicians engaged in early reproductive biomedicine repeatedly bumped up against larger political forces. The authors weave several compelling narratives around these twists and turns, including the ethical outcries about “experimental” procedures and technologies that would forever change the landscape of baby making. I begin by recounting their tale of scientists and clinicians, who are hardly household names, but whose collective pursuits would create new possibilities for baby making that would eventually lead to new kinds of biological relatedness. I next turn to Marsh and Ronner’s compelling narrative around the inability to sort out the ethical and moral issues that IVF posed, and how a little-known medical school came to be the spot where the first U.S. IVF baby was born. Finally (and not discussed in this review), the authors turn to the contemporary period and the rise of baby making as big business, the governance of assisted reproductive technologies by states, and some of the scandals by medical fertility specialists, which made front-page news and raised further questions about an unregulated industry. …