ABSTRACT
In this chapter, “Broken Pregnancies: Assisted Reproductive Technology and Temporality,” Talia Welsh explores how the progressive nature of the medical sciences in contemporary developed worlds has made pregnancy not just an experience, but as a possible experience for all women. Assisted technologies of pregnancy provide a very different horizon regarding pregnancy and make infertile bodies not appear as broken, but rather as temporary problems that can be solved with the right medical intervention. In such a way, assisted pregnancies mirror our contemporary experience of the medical field as an infinite horizon upon which one day any ailment can be cured. This chapter examines the paradox of how the cures for brokenness can often entrench brokenness at a deeper level. The more technologies assist, the more every part of our experience can be read as something that will be able to benefit from more medical intervention.
