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Reproductive Entanglements: Body, State, and Culture in the Dys/Regulation of Child-Bearing
- Social Research: An International Quarterly
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 78, Number 3, Fall 2011
- pp. 693-718
- 10.1353/sor.2011.0059
- Article
- Additional Information
Although conventionally tracked in the "overdeveloped world" (to use philosopher Sandra Harding's felicitous phrase), assistive reproductive technologies are now available in many parts of the globe. This review essay reports on qualitative social science research on techniques such as In Vitro Fertilization, egg purchase, gestational surrogacy, and sex selection across national boundaries. It highlights the disruptions and recuperations of gender and generational relations; religious and legislative regulation; and the opportunities as well as oppressions that the commercialization of the reproductive body entail.