scholarly journals Uterus transplantation in and beyond cisgender women: revisiting procreative liberty in light of emerging reproductive technologies

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amel Alghrani
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Uterus Transplantation ◽  
Procreative Liberty

scholarly journals May I have your uterus? The contribution of considering complexities preceding live uterus transplantation

2021 ◽  
pp. medhum-2020-011864
Author(s):  
Lisa Guntram
Keyword(s):  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
In Vitro Fertilisation ◽  
Medical Innovation ◽  
Uterus Transplantation ◽  
Ethical Debate ◽  
Care And Support ◽  
Different Dimensions

Uterus transplantation combined with in vitro fertilisation (IVF) (henceforth called UTx-IVF) as a treatment for infertility caused by an absence or malfunction of the uterus is advancing. About 50 transplantations have been conducted worldwide and at least 14 children have been born—9 of them by women taking part in a Swedish research project on UTx-IVF. The Swedish research protocol initially stated that the potential recipient must ‘have her own donor’ who is preferably related to the recipient. But what does it mean to ask someone for a uterus? What challenges does this question instigate? And what norms may it enact? In this article, I explore how 10 women—who have considered, and sometimes pursued, UTx-IVF—describe their experiences of searching for a donor. I aim to show how an analysis of such accounts can help us unpack some of the specific relational and gendered dimensions of UTx-IVF and by doing so enrich discussions of risks, benefits, care and support in UTx-IVF. Drawing on research in social sciences and medical humanities that has demonstrated how assisted reproductive technologies and organ donation can provoke social and familial conundrums, with respect to such topics as embodiment and identity, I present three patterns that describe different dimensions of the interviewees’ quest for a uterus donor. I discuss the negotiations that took place, how expectations unfolded and how entanglements were managed as the interviewees considered asking someone for a donation. Such an examination, I suggest, contributes to make care and support more attuned to the experiences and entanglements that UTx-IVF entails for those pursuing it. This will become increasingly important if (or when) UTx-IVF becomes part of general healthcare. To conclude, I problematise responsibilities and relational challenges in medical innovation, and in this way provide insights into how the ethical debate over UTx-IVF can broaden its scope.

‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Procreative liberty, its conceptual deficiencies and the legal right to access fertility care of males

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-400
Author(s):  
Daniel Sperling
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Procreative Liberty ◽  
The World ◽  
Unequal Access ◽  
The Right

AbstractIn recent years, assisted reproductive technologies have played an important role in shaping the lives of many individuals throughout the world. Their promise to make people become parents is believed to fulfil the most elementary interests a person may have. It is argued and legally acknowledged that such interests constitute with much significance a person's self-identity and sense of belonging to the living society, also constituting her reproductive liberty or the right to procreate. Despite their significance and importance, access to these technologies and to fertility care specifically may not always accord with the principle of equality and justice. It will be argued that, in some cases, such unequal access reflects various forms of discrimination between different groups in society. It is the purpose of this article to show that such a phenomenon is the result of an underdeveloped and unregulated area of law, characterising many Western countries. Specifically, it demonstrates conceptual deficiencies in so-called ‘procreative liberty’ with regard to the content and scope of the right to procreate, the values underlying such a right, and the legal and social institutions supporting and securing it. The article highlights these deficiencies, making them more evident when the notion of ‘reproductive liberty’ applies to positive and modern attempts to become parents, especially but not exclusively those brought by men.

Procreative Liberty and Harm to Offspring in Assisted Reproduction

2004 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
Healthy Children ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Vitro Fertilization ◽  
Procreative Liberty ◽  
Ethical Debate ◽  
The Status

Assisted reproductive technologies (“ARTs”) have enabled many infertile couples to have children but have long been controversial. Opposition initially focused on the “unnaturalness” of laboratory conception and the doubts that healthy children would result. Once children were born, ethical debate shifted to the status and ownership of embryos and the novel forms of family that could result.The new century has brought forth both new and old ethical concerns. The growing capacity to screen the genomes of embryos has sparked fears of eugenic selection and alteration. In addition, concerns about safety have reasserted themselves. Several studies suggest that in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) may be associated with lower birth weights and major malformations. Ethical attention has also focused on whether all persons seeking ARTs should be granted access to them, regardless of their child-rearing ability, age, disability, health status, marital status, or sexual orientation.

Cleavage of Human Embryos: Options and Diversity

Acta Naturae ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 88-96
Author(s):  
Yu. K. Doronin ◽  
I. V. Senechkin ◽  
L. V. Hilkevich ◽  
M. A. Kurcer
Keyword(s):  
Time Lapse ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Human Embryos ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Noninvasive Methods ◽  
Topographic Features ◽  
Time Parameters ◽  
Embryo Cleavage ◽  
Time Lapse Imaging ◽  
Developmental Dynamics

In order to estimate the diversity of embryo cleavage relatives to embryo progress (blastocyst formation), time-lapse imaging data of preimplantation human embryo development were used. This retrospective study is focused on the topographic features and time parameters of the cleavages, with particular emphasis on the lengths of cleavage cycles and the genealogy of blastomeres in 2- to 8-cell human embryos. We have found that all 4-cell human embryos have four developmental variants that are based on the sequence of appearance and orientation of cleavage planes during embryo cleavage from 2 to 4 blastomeres. Each variant of cleavage shows a strong correlation with further developmental dynamics of the embryos (different cleavage cycle characteristics as well as lengths of blastomere cycles). An analysis of the sequence of human blastomere divisions allowed us to postulate that the effects of zygotic determinants are eliminated as a result of cleavage, and that, thereafter, blastomeres acquire the ability of own syntheses, regulation, polarization, formation of functional contacts, and, finally, of specific differentiation. This data on the early development of human embryos obtained using noninvasive methods complements and extend our understanding of the embryogenesis of eutherian mammals and may be applied in the practice of reproductive technologies.

Research outcomes following uterus transplantation at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Georgevsky ◽  
Ying Li ◽  
Kate Wyburn ◽  
Selvan Pather ◽  
Trevor TejadaBerges ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Uterus Transplantation ◽  
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital ◽  
Research Outcomes ◽  
Alfred Hospital

Re-imagining Reproduction: Unsettling Metaphors in the History of Imperial Science and Commercial Surrogacy in India

Somatechnics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalindi Vora
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Commercial Surrogacy ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Travel Industry

This paper provides an analysis of how cultural notions of the body and kinship conveyed through Western medical technologies and practices in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) bring together India's colonial history and its economic development through outsourcing, globalisation and instrumentalised notions of the reproductive body in transnational commercial surrogacy. Essential to this industry is the concept of the disembodied uterus that has arisen in scientific and medical practice, which allows for the logic of the ‘gestational carrier’ as a functional role in ART practices, and therefore in transnational medical fertility travel to India. Highlighting the instrumentalisation of the uterus as an alienable component of a body and subject – and therefore of women's bodies in surrogacy – helps elucidate some of the material and political stakes that accompany the growth of the fertility travel industry in India, where histories of privilege and difference converge. I conclude that the metaphors we use to structure our understanding of bodies and body parts impact how we imagine appropriate roles for people and their bodies in ways that are still deeply entangled with imperial histories of science, and these histories shape the contemporary disparities found in access to medical and legal protections among participants in transnational surrogacy arrangements.

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