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The Elusive Embryo by Gay Becker, University of California Press,
拢28.50, ISBN 0520224302

ARE IVF and other technologies that help women to conceive changing the very
nature of parenthood and family life? Well, no, says Gay Becker, professor of
medical anthropology at the University of California in San Francisco. In
practice, reproductive technologies end up reinforcing the status quo.

Many American men and women who benefit from these techniques see themselves
as consumers, eager to buy a solution to their fertility problem in the medical
marketplace, says Becker in The Elusive Embryo. The success stories are
mostly white, middle-class and heterosexual. 鈥淥ther, less favoured groups are
rendered invisible,鈥� says Becker, and this gets in the way of much-needed social
change.

What鈥檚 more, American couples reinforce their traditional gender roles even
as they resort to reproductive technologies that seem to threaten them, Becker
says. You might expect couples who use donor sperm or eggs to place less
emphasis genetic relationships and more on social bonds. Instead, couples
attempt to 鈥渘ormalise鈥� and 鈥渘aturalise鈥� the use of donor gametes. Women who buy
eggs for implantation, for example, convince themselves that pregnancy is more
important in shaping the child. And couples using donor sperm often seek to
lessen the man鈥檚 gender anxieties by ensuring that their child never knows of
its origins.