ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the use of assisted conception treatments within a medical, legal and social framework. It seeks to separate the facts from both the ways in which those facts have been interpreted and the ways in which professional practices and social attitudes have developed. Using this framework, some areas are explored in detail – namely, who gets access to these treatments, what happens when a third party is involved through donor-assisted treatment or surrogacy arrangements, and how donor conception and surrogacy families differ, if at all, from biological families. The chapter argues that critical awareness of the social context of developments in assisted conception is essential if professional practices are to be sufficiently reflexive and services sufficiently effective. The separate influences of medical, legal and social frameworks on professionals, service delivery and service users are diluted or reinforced according to how they interweave and intersect in different arenas.
