A concise overview of fertility technology--its history, practical
applications, and ethical and social implications around the world.
In the late 1850s, a physician in New York City used a syringe and glass
tube to inject half a drop of sperm into a woman's uterus, marking the
first recorded instance of artificial insemination. From that day
forward, doctors and scientists have turned to technology in ever more
innovative ways to facilitate conception. Fertility Technology surveys
this history in all its medical, practical, and ethical complexity, and
offers a look at state-of-the-art fertility technology in various social
and political contexts around the world.
Donna J. Drucker's concise and eminently readable account introduces the
five principal types of fertility technologies used in human
reproduction--artificial insemination; ovulation timing; sperm, egg, and
embryo freezing; in vitro fertilization; and IVF in uterine
transplants--discussing the development, manufacture, dispersion, and
use of each. Geographically, it focuses on countries where innovations
have emerged and countries where these technologies most profoundly
affect individuals and population policies. Drucker's wide-ranging
perspective reveals how these technologies, used for birth control as
well as conception in many cases, have been critical in shaping the
moral, practical, and political meaning of human life, kinship, and
family in different nations and cultures since the mid-nineteenth
century.
