Perceptual-Epistemological Judgment: Embryologists Examining Life

Alexander Styhre
Additional contact information
Alexander Styhre: University of Gothenburg

Chapter 3 in Professionals Making Judgments, 2013, pp 99-122 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Assisted fertilization or in vitro fertilization (IVF) is the clinical branch of reproductive medicine, the study of human reproduction and the female and male reproductive capacities. In the post-World War II period much research effort has been dedicated to understanding how human reproduction can be disciplined and controlled, very much in the face of the global population explosion that was much discussed in the 1950s and 1960s. Not until the late 1960s did pioneers of assisted fertilization therapies start to use the knowledge produced in this field to actively promote rather than to curb human reproduction. Researchers such as Robert Edwards in the United Kingdom realized that the total number of children born is not the essential problem but rather the birth of unwanted children. Human reproductive capacities are unevenly distributed, and while one family in a developing country may have to provide six or seven children, the neighboring family may have no children, which is just as much a social problem, inasmuch as the children provide for their elderly parents in many parts of the world. In 1978, the first baby conceived on through assisted fertilization was born in the United Kingdom. By the mid-1980s, assisted fertilization was established as a clinical practice in many countries.

Keywords: Human Reproduction; Emotional Work; Reproductive Material; Visual Skill; Professional Vision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-36957-4_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137369574

DOI: 10.1057/9781137369574_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().