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The Race Idea in Reproductive Technologies: Beyond Epistemic Scientism and Technological Mastery

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Abstract

This paper explores the limitations of epistemic scientism for understanding the role the concept of race plays in assisted reproductive technology (ART) practices. Two major limitations centre around the desire to use scientific knowledge to bring about social improvement. In the first case, undue focus is placed on debunking the scientific reality of racial categories and characteristics. The alternative to this approach is to focus instead on the way the race idea functions in ART practices. Doing so reveals how the race idea (1) helps to define the reproductive “problems” different groups of women are experiencing and to dictate when and how they should be “helped”; (2) helps to resolve tensions about who should be considered the real parents of children produced by reproductive technologies; and (3) is used to limit ART use where that use threatens to denaturalize the very sociopolitical landscape the race idea has created. In the second case, scientific knowledge regarding reproduction is thought to call for technological control over that reproduction. This leads to an overemphasis on personal responsibility and a depoliticization of racialized social inequalities.

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Notes

  1. Both involve the creation of an embryo through in vitro fertilization and the subsequent implantation of that embryo into a womb. But whereas in gestational surrogacy the woman who provides the genetic material is the intended mother, in IVF with ovum donation the intended mother is the woman who gestates the fetus.

  2. This copy was removed from the website the following week, and the clinic released a statement saying that the policy, in place since the 1980s, had been discontinued a year earlier (Higgins, Sturino, and Mitton 2014).

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Correspondence to Camisha Russell.

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Russell, C. The Race Idea in Reproductive Technologies: Beyond Epistemic Scientism and Technological Mastery. Bioethical Inquiry 12, 601–612 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-015-9663-3

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