Bodies in Glass

A reappraisal of reproductive science, this text explores the cultural landscape and emergent iconographic bodies of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and medical genetic discourse. In doing so, questions about the disciplinary economies of the medico-moral gaze are raised.

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An imaginative and original reappraisal of reproductive science, "Bodies in glass" explores the complex cultural landscape and emergent iconographic bodies of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and medical genetic discourse. Through a compelling deconstruction of medical and legal languages, texts and institutional practices, Deborah Lynn Steinberg traces the convergence of four key logics - authorial, recombinant, embryo-protectionist and eugenic - which, she argues, are embedded in the field of IVF; the textual material processes of erasure and recombination of women's bodies and reproductive 'fitness'. The author prioritises consideration of the racist, (hetero) sexist and ablest dynamics that the shape the eugenic rationalities of IVF. In so doing, fundamental questions about the disciplinary economies of the medico-moral gaze and its production of 'monstrous' (genetic, embryonic and female) bodies are brought to the fore.