Making Parents

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) makes babies and parents at once.
Drawing on science and technology studies, feminist theory, and historical and
ethnographic analyses of ART clinics, Charis Thompson explores the intertwining of
biological reproduction with the personal, political, and technological meanings of
reproduction. She analyzes the "ontological choreography" at ART clinics -- the
dynamics by which technical, scientific, kinship, gender, emotional, legal,
political, financial, and other matters are coordinated -- using ethnographic data
to address questions usually treated in the abstract. Reproductive technologies,
says Thompson, are part of the increasing tendency to turn social problems into
biomedical questions and can be used as a lens through which to see the resulting
changes in the relations between science and society.After giving an account of the
book's disciplinary roots in science and technology studies and in feminist
scholarship on reproduction, Thompson comes to the ethnographic heart of her study.
She develops her concept of ontological choreography by examining ART's
normalization of "miraculous" technology (including the etiquette of technological
sex); gender identity in the assigned roles of mother and father and the
conservative nature of gender relations in the clinic; the naturalization of
technologically assisted kinship and procreative intent; and patients' pursuit of
agency through objectification and technology. Finally, Thompson explores the
economies of reproductive technologies, concluding with a speculative and polemical
look at the "biomedical mode of reproduction" as a predictor of future relations
between science and society.