IVF: Modern miracle or risky procedure? Transformations: gender, reproduction and contemporary society (Week 10) Karen Throsby

Outline What is IVF? Feminist and non-feminist responses to IVF Treatment failure (distribution of responsibility)

What is IVF?

A laboratory procedure A process of assisted conception

Facts and figures (April 2003-March 2004) patients cycles of treatment 8251 successful births (10242 children) Success rates (with “fresh” eggs): –Women under 35: 28.2% –Women 35-37: 23.6% –Women 38-39: 18.3% –Women 40-42: 10.6%

The risks of treatment Multiple pregnancy Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) Unknown long term effects of drugs Treatment failure Stress Financial hardship

Resisting IVF Many people (feminist and non-feminist) have opposed IVF – why?

Non-feminist responses “Pro-life”: embryos are “alive” –Cases of embryo “adoption” –US – “snowflake babies”

Disruption of normative reproductive categories Intergenerational donation Fragmentation of parenthood (social, genetic and gestational) Temporal disruptions (e.g. twins born years, even decades, apart).

Feminist responses: FINRRAGE Feminist International Network for Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering Reproductive technology as experimental and abusive of women Taking women’s health care out of women’s hands and into men’s

Critiques of FINRRAGE Too generalising about “women” and “men” Assumption of natural womanhood outside of culture Cannot account for women’s involvement (outside of complicity / false consciousness)

But…. Centralise women’s bodies in the debate International perspective Race / class discrimination Showed links between industries (e.g. farming / fertility medicine)

Women as users, not recipients / victims Rayna Rapp: women as “moral pioneers” Jana Sawicki (1991) Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body - reproductive technologies as biopower: –“..creating desires, attaching individuals to specific identities, and establishing norms against which individuals and their behaviours and bodies are judged and against which they police themselves” (Sawicki 1991: 68) Women actively use IVF, rather than simply being passive recipients / victims of it. Policing of own bodies is experienced as empowering / resistant – “doing something about it”.

IVF failure – blaming women? Women do most of the “work” of IVF: –Information gathering –Organising appointments / tests (for both partners) IVF focuses on women’s bodies Different standards of “fertility” for men and women Technology succeeds, but women fail

“Poor perfomer” Liz: I thought, well… I was just sitting there thinking… gosh, they can’t… I feel labelled! You sort of… like a school report – could do better. “crap eggs” (Stephanie) “[I’m] rubbish at producing eggs” (Jenny) “[I never] did that well with the eggs” (Jane)

Masculinity / virility / fertility Beth: I sent [partner] a card on Valentine’s Day last year, saying “To the world’s greatest lover” and there’s a friend of mine in here, who actually has 4 children […] and her boyfriend said, “Oh, how come I didn’t get a card saying, “Greatest lover?” and she said, “You’ve got children to prove you are.”

John: […] Now, it’s like “Do you have any children?” I say, “Well, no, unfortunately, my wife couldn’t have any. We’ve tried. We couldn’t.

Conclusion IVF is a new reproductive technology that is highly in demand from patients It both affirms, and disrupts, normative reproductive categories It has been the focus of considerable opposition from both feminists and non- feminists, but on very different grounds.