Selective Reproduction in the 21st Century

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction: Kinds of Children

   • Ayo Wahlberg, Tine M. Gammeltoft

   Pages 1-24

3. Sex Selection

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25

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   2. Coping with Sex-Selective Abortions in Vietnam: An Ethnographic Study of Selective Reproduction as Emotional Experience

      • Trần Minh Hằng

      Pages 27-44

   3. The Development of Sex-Selective Reproductive Technologies Within Fertility, Inc. and the Anticipation of Lifestyle Sex Selection

      • Rajani Bhatia

      Pages 45-66

4. Preventing Disease and Disability

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 67-67

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   2. Moral Adherers: Pregnant Women Undergoing Routine Prenatal Screening in Denmark

      • Laura Louise Heinsen

      Pages 69-95

   3. Moral Bearing: The Paradox of Choice, Anxiety and Responsibility in Taiwan

      • Li-Wen Shih

      Pages 97-122

   4. Selecting What? Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis and Screening Trajectories in Spain

      • Vincenzo Pavone, Sara Lafuente Funes

      Pages 123-148

5. Selecting Traits

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 149-149

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   2. They Don’t Just Take a Random Egg: Egg Selection in the United States

      • Lauren Jade Martin

      Pages 151-170

   3. Technologies of Enchantment: Commercial Surrogacy and Egg Donation in India

      • Michaela Stockey-Bridge

      Pages 171-192

6. Back Matter

   Pages 193-198

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This book explores how conditions for childbearing are changing in the 21st century under the impact of new biomedical technologies. Selective reproductive technologies (SRTs) - technologies that aim to prevent or promote the birth of particular kinds of children – are increasingly widespread across the globe. Wahlberg and Gammeltoft bring together a collection of essays providing unique ethnographic insights on how SRTs are made available within different cultural, socio-economic and regulatory settings and how people perceive and make use of these new possibilities as they envision and try to form their future lives. Topics covered include sex-selective abortions, termination of pregnancies following detection of fetal anomalies during prenatal screening, the development of preimplantation genetic diagnosis techniques as well as the screening of potential gamete donors by egg agencies and sperm banks. This is invaluable reading for scholars of medical anthropology, medical sociology and science and technology studies, as well as for the fields of gender studies, reproductive health and genetic disease research.

• reproductive technologies
• medical anthropology
• medical sociology
• reproductive health
• abortion
• preimplantation genetic diagnosis

“This unique and ground-breaking volume defines a new field of “selective reproduction,” in which novel reproductive technologies and techniques allow for the birth of some children, but not others. Rich case studies from around the world make clear both the hopes and anguish of reproductive selection, particularly for women as potential parents. Together, these chapters pose major questions about the role of law, bioethics, and population policy making amidst the haunting specter of neo-eugenics. Selective Reproduction in the 21st Century should be essential reading for many audiences—social scientists of reproduction, bioethicists, disability rights scholars and activists, and the reproductive medicine community itself.” (Marcia C. Inhorn, Yale University, USA)

• Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

  Ayo Wahlberg, Tine M. Gammeltoft

Ayo Wahlberg is a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the recipient of two prestigious research grants, from the Danish Council for Independent Research (2011-2014) and the European Research Council (2015-2020). 


Tine M. Gammeltoft is a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her book, Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Selective Reproduction in Vietnam, won the Eileen Basker Memorial Prize & AES Senior Book Prize.

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