Are new reproductive and genetic technologies racing ahead of a society
that is unable to establish limits to their use? Have the "new genetics"
outpaced our ability to control their future applications? This book
examines the case of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), the
procedure used to prevent serious genetic disease by embryo selection,
and the so-called "designer baby" method. Using detailed empirical
evidence, the authors show that far from being a runaway technology, the
regulation of PGD over the past fifteen years provides an example of
precaution and restraint, as well as continual adaptation to changing
social circumstances. Through interviews, media and policy analysis, and
participant observation at two PGD centers in the United Kingdom, Born
and Made provides an in-depth sociological examination of the competing
moral obligations that define the experience of PGD.
Among the many novel findings of this pathbreaking ethnography of
reproductive biomedicine is the prominence of uncertainty and
ambivalence among PGD patients and professionals--a finding
characteristic of the emerging "biosociety," in which scientific
progress is inherently paradoxical and contradictory. In contrast to
much of the speculative futurology that defines this field, Born and
Made provides a timely and revealing case study of the on-the-ground
decision-making that shapes technological assistance to human heredity.
