Read more
In 1978 the world’s first IVF baby was born, ushering in a paradigm shift in reproductive medicine. IVF and collaborative reproduction (egg/embryo donation, gestational surrogacy) create new opportunities and conflicts about reproduction and parentage. Undoing Motherhood examines the connected issues of fragmented and uncertain maternity in the post-IVF reproductive era.
List of contents
1. A New Maternity Uncertainty?
2. Conceiving Motherhood and the Repronormative Family
3. Losing My Genetics: Paternal versus Maternal Concerns
4. Contingent Maternities? Maternal Claims Making in Collaborative Reproduction
5. Designating Maternity: Contested Motherhood and the Courts
6. Adopting or Resisting New Maternities?
7. Concluding Thoughts: Maternity Somewhere in Between
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
About the author
KATHERINE M. JOHNSON is a professor of sociology and director of gender and sexuality studies at Tulane University. Her research focuses on the sociology of reproduction, and explores themes such as stratified reproduction, postmodern family building, motherhood, and medical and technological interventions into reproduction. Through this work, she has examined a range of reproductive topics including infertility, collaborative reproduction, abortion, childbirth, and breastfeeding. More recently she has also started working on issues of campus sexual violence and the transformative possibilities of feminist pedagogy to create healthier and safer campus cultures. Her work has appeared in both academic and practitioner-oriented journals.
Summary
Examines the implications of fragmented maternities in the post-IVF reproductive era for generating maternity uncertainty - an increasing cultural ambiguity about what does and should constitute maternity. Undoing Motherhood explores this uncertainty in the social worlds of reproductive medicine and law.
