Abstract
Although research on reproductive technologies such as IVF and egg freezing has traditionally been rather separated from the work on contra- ceptives and abortion, analysing reproductive and nonreproductive tech- nologies together, as this volume proposes, can provide the basis for a broader contemporary politics of reproductive control. This chapter analyses this politics of integrating reproductive and nonreproductive technologies by focusing specifically on IVF-based fertility (preservation) treatments and (medical) abortion. More specifically, it explores both technologies’ inter- related research trajectories and the financial and platformised dimensions of their clinical implementation. With a dual focus on egg freezing and medical abortion, this project seeks to explore how processes of platformisation and financialisation shape the clinical and commercial infrastructures that govern twenty-first-century reproduction. The chapter’s broadened analytic scope that incorporates both reproductive and nonreproductive technologies highlights how a contemporary biopolitics of reproductive control may be expressed through these technologies’ interrelated regulatory practices, shared politicised reference points (e.g. the embryo), opposite investment practices and mutually reinforcing social effects.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Technologies of Reproduction Across the Lifecourse: Expanding Reproductive Studies |
| Publisher | Emerald |
| Chapter | 14 |
| Pages | 261 |
| Number of pages | 283 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781800717343 |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Sept 2022 |