Welcome to Gaia! ::

post 301

Oh yah.

Here's the Abstract

New reproductive technologies have the potential to radicalize family life, as they could blur kinship lines, separate biological and social parenthood, and encourage couples to create 'designer babies'. On the other hand, these technologies could help more married couples create socially-acceptable nuclear families and reduce unwanted childless marriages. This article uses the 'stories' from qualitative interviews with couples seeking fertility treatments in New Zealand to interrogate motives for treatment, gendered experiences with procedures, and views about the future of marriage without children. The interviews show that, despite the potential of medically assisted conception, these participants use reproductive technologies as a vehicle to normality and social acceptance. The results of this study, combined with overseas research, suggest that medically assisted conception could reinforce pronatalism and patriarchal families rather than lead to a future revolution in family life. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

And the Intr.

In recent decades, family life has been transformed by more effective birth control, women's stronger presence in higher education and paid work, global labour markets, and greater emphasis on personal choice and individual fulfillment. These changes in the larger society have encouraged more consensual relationships, delayed childbirth and declining fertility (Beck-Gernsheim 2002, Lewis 2003). At the same time, women's delayed childbirth and certain lifestyle choices have increased fertility problems. Medical interventions now permeate the entire childbearing experience but new technologies permit more low fertility couples to reproduce and enable more women to bear children outside nuclear families.
Fertility clinics have been established throughout the world and more people are turning to them for help with conception. Fertility treatments began in the 1960s and the first 'test-tube' baby was born in 1978 in Britain. Since then, a wide range of procedures have now become routine, such as egg retrieval, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and re-implantation into a woman's womb (Coney and Else 1999:1), although Australian data indicates that only 1.7% of all babies are born with assisted conception (Ford et al 2003). Nevertheless, frozen sperm and embryos now make conception possible after their donor's death, postmenopausal women can bear children, and potential parents can contract 'surrogates' to bear children for them (ibid). Assisted conception also enables more single and lesbian women to reproduce outside nuclear families, and sperm or egg donation and surrogacy could alter generational lines and parental roles. Generally, new reproductive and genetic technologies have to potential to radically transform family life (Eichler 1996).
While technology permits both childless marriages and greater childbearing options, social pressure to reproduce continues. This includes the implicit assumption that all 'normal' adults will develop permanent intimate relationships, will want to reproduce, and will actually become parents (Veevers 1980, Morell 1994, Cameron, 1997). Many people still dream of what they consider to be a normal family, with a committed marriage and their own biological children. In fact, social research suggests that most heterosexual couples assume that they will have children when they find a suitable partner (May 1995, Daniluk 2001, Exley and Letherby 2001). Consequently, unexpected infertility causes considerable anxiety and self-doubt, especially when having children is synonymous with adulthood.
The media and some-sociologists focus on the radical potential of reproductive technologies to change family life and the wider society. However, this paper questions the extent of social change generated by medically assisted conception by showing how it is actually being used in New Zealand by ordinary people with fertility problems. Five themes are drawn from qualitative interviews with men and women seeking treatment in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. These include the close link between fertility and identity, the marital stress associated with the inability to conceive, social exclusion felt by those who cannot reproduce, the increasing normalization of medically assisted conception, and negative visions of life without children. Through a discussion of these interview themes, combined with overseas research, I argue that medically assisted conception is more likely to reproduce nuclear families with gendered roles than to become a revolutionary force altering the family as an institution. Before the details of the New Zealand research are discussed, the radical potential of reproductive technologies needs to be further outlined.

post 303

Your thoughts on how this type of medical ability will impact families in the future.

post 305

Yep, it does.

How are your classes?

Post 307

My bio class has some parts that A&P have, no other bio class has it, either. Organs and their functions, skull bones, all human bones and joints. Discetion of a frog and knowing its parts and functions. My final test on all this is next week, then we get to go into the book and do what everyone else is learning.

post 309

20+ on our skull, to know
Different systems in thoracic region and the functions
skeleton - bones, fossa, types of joint with examples, process, and foramens

Post 311

Idk... I need the gold...

*ignor this post*

Post 313

We have to make sure to spell everything correctly and with the right endings... Though my teacher will forgive a couple simple spelling mistakes... As for the hip we're working on that now. Erm I look it up, it was Os Cox or something...

post 315

My teacher told us the femur.