We are pleased to offer for review ‘Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Third Phase: Global Encounters and Emerging Moral Worlds‘ edited by Kate Hampshire & Bob Simpson (Berghahn Book, 2015). Expressions of interest are welcome from across the medical humanities.
Following the birth of the first “test-tube baby” in 1978, Assisted Reproductive Technologies became available to a small number of people in high-income countries able to afford the cost of private treatment, a period seen as the “First Phase” of ARTs. In the “Second Phase,” these treatments became increasingly available to cosmopolitan global elites.
Today, this picture is changing — albeit slowly and unevenly — as ARTs are becoming more widely available. While, for many, accessing infertility treatments remains a dream, these are beginning to be viewed as a standard part of reproductive healthcare and family planning. This volume highlights this “Third Phase” — the opening up of ARTs to new constituencies in terms of ethnicity, geography, education, and class.
If you would like to review ‘Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Third Phase’ (no more than 1,000 words in length), then please consult our reviewer’s guidelines and email our reviews editor with a short explanation of why you are well placed to review the book.