ABSTRACT
Within recent sociological writing on health and illness there has been a renewed interest in the biological body and a genuine desire to analyse biology (a discipline within which there are many different approaches) in non-reductionist ways within sociological fields (Birke 1999). However, until more recently sociological writing on reproductive technologies has only briefly touched on biological issues, with its dominant focus on criticizing cultural and social myths that posit pregnancy and motherhood as a woman’s ‘natural’ destiny. Within this vast literature, selective reproductive technologies have been given substantial attention by feminists (e.g. Birke et al. 1990; Rapp 1999). In particular, there has been widespread criticism of the use of testing for the purposes of pre-sex selection and sex-selective abortions (SSAs) as well as other diagnostic processes that label embryos and foetuses as either ‘defective’ or ‘desirable’ (e.g. Arditti et al. 1984; Patel 1988). When reports in the 1980s traced the incidence of widespread abortions of female foetuses and the expansion of prenatal clinics to the city of Mumbai, Indian feminists, activists and scholars began contributing to the debates and challenging sex selective reproductive technologies, arguing against their detrimental effect on the immediate and long-term health and survival of women (Patel 1988; Lingam 1988, 1990; Kishwar 1987). While feminists have played an important role in exposing the differential gender impacts of reproductive technologies, they have also often problematically represented women as passive victims.
