{"id":136,"date":"2018-06-21T14:32:34","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T13:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=136"},"modified":"2018-12-13T10:58:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T10:58:06","slug":"reproduction-in-law-and-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=136","title":{"rendered":"Reproduction in Law and Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

The early summer conference season has been quite eventful for us. We had the pleasure of presenting some of our initial findings at two events: the British Sociological Association’s (BSA) Human Reproduction Study Group Annual Conference on May 24 and Visualising Reproduction on June 4. Although both took place in Leicester at De Montfort University, they each took a unique and innovative angle on issues emerging in reproduction studies. I here reflect not only on our project\u2019s fit within larger conversations on assisted reproduction, but also on the impressive breadth of topics covered at these two conferences.<\/p>\n

Reproduction and the Law \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

With a very timely choice of topic, the BSA event highlighted critical intersections between reproduction and the law. Coupled with the anticipation of the Irish referendum, I was reminded that the law plays a crucial role in determining our reproductive choices. As someone who has only recently moved to the UK, Professor Emily Jackson\u2019s plenary talk was particularly eye-opening with regards to the legal work that still needs to be done here in order to improve women\u2019s choices. Of course, improvements are necessary everywhere, but the UK has its peculiarities and unique challenges. Most notably, the country has a 10 year storage limit on eggs frozen for social reasons, thus not always allowing women sufficient time to use them to conceive. (An online petition you can sign to change this is in place at https:\/\/petition.parliament.uk\/petitions\/218313<\/a>) I was also intrigued to find about the various barriers women face as a result of the 1967 Abortion Act. Unquestionably, it is time to change regulations to improve access. Professor Jackson\u2019s talk was an important reminder that we can and should push further.<\/p>\n

The presentations I attended throughout the day allowed me to reflect on how we might best regulate gamete donation, surrogacy, and egg freezing, to name just a few topics that came up. The range of global contexts (including North America, Europe and Asia) that presenters explored was impressive and highlighted how ethical challenges are influenced by national policies. In particular, economic inequalities have affected assisted reproduction practices, as governments often fail to keep up with such the changing landscape of assisted reproductive technologies. The regulations required to protect those who are vulnerable, such as surrogates and gamete donors who are based in lower-income countries, are either flawed or non-existent. The BSA event provided a vital space for discussions on how we might proceed. Even though many of us are unsure of the best course of action, starting these conversations is definitely a promising start.<\/p>\n

Presenting on Time-lapse<\/strong><\/p>\n

The use of imaging technologies in IVF has been itself caught up in larger debates on commercialisation and best course of treatment. I tried to capture the contentious place that such technologies occupy today in the world of IVF during our presentation at the BSA event. Views on time-lapse have changed tremendously even during the course of our research.<\/p>\n

The two conferences we attended perfectly capture the debates\/conversations that time-lapse is part of. On one hand, it is a contested technology that potentially calls for more regulatory action in the UK. On the other hand, it captures imaginations with its ability to give us unprecedented insights into the life of embryos. This second aspect brings me to the visual of reproduction and how this was explored during the Visualising Reproduction event.<\/p>\n

Visualising Reproduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With topics ranging from the history of embryo illustrations to menstruation in the visual arts to holographic visualisations of the clitoris, Visualizing Reproduction was fascinating, unique, and much-needed conference that showcased the significance of reproductive imagery. Listening to the invited speakers (including our very own Manuela Perrotta), I realised that many topics we study in the social sciences are intricately related to art and visualisation. In particular, the conference highlighted collaborations between artists and academics. This stood out me as interdisciplinarity at its best. For example, Isabel Davis from Birkbeck and artist Anna Burel talked about the Experimental Conception Hospital imagined by Robert Lyall, a 19th<\/sup> century physician. Anna\u2019s illustrations of pregnant women and art pieces made Lyall\u2019s imagined institution come to life. Another example of amazing work from artists was Liv Pennington\u2019s exploration of pregnancy tests \u2013 a technology so mundane yet at the same time so mysterious. Thinking about such work, it strikes me that the visual has the power to break down taboos and barriers, as also exemplified in representations of menstruation in the arts \u2013 a topic that Camilla R\u00f8stvik brilliantly covered in her presentation.<\/p>\n

Visual Representations has taught us that fruitful collaborations between artists and academics might be able to provide a better-rounded picture of the topic studied. It has also taught us that we need to further emphasize the visual in our project\u2019s exploration of time-lapse and its uses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The early summer conference season has been quite eventful for us. We had the pleasure of presenting some of our initial findings at two events: the British Sociological Association’s (BSA) Human Reproduction Study Group Annual Conference on May 24 and Visualising Reproduction on June 4. Although both took place in Leicester at De Montfort University, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,5,7],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conferences","tag-arts","tag-law","tag-time-lapse","tag-visual-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9YI6o-2c","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":262,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=262","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":0},"title":"British Sociological Association Human Reproduction Study Group Annual Conference 2019","date":"20th June 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week we were delighted to attend the BSA Human Reproduction Study Group Annual Conference, held on June 12 at De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester. During one of the late afternoon sessions, Manuela Perrotta (pictured below) presented our paper-in-progress on professional attitudes towards the role of evidence-based-medicine (EBM) in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_2468.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":147,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=147","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":1},"title":"Remaking Reproduction in Cambridge","date":"16th July 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A big event on the conference calendar this year was the \u2018Remaking Reproduction\u2019 conference organised by ReproSoc (Reproductive Sociology) at Cambridge University. With great enthusiasm, all three members of the research team attended three days between June 27-29, and Manuela Perrotta presented some initial work from the project in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":247,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=247","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":2},"title":"Our Year in Review","date":"1st March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"2018 has been a busy year for the Remaking the Human Body team. We are happy to share that we have, so far, conducted observations at 5 sites and have interviewed more than 50 professionals and patients about their views on time-lapse, IVF technology, and add-ons in the UK. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":266,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=266","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":3},"title":"Researching reproductive technologies: Notes on our summer and progress so far","date":"27th September 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The RHB team had a productive summer with amazing conferences and manuscript writing. Having received so much useful feedback as of late, we are ready to publish some of the first project findings. The conferences we attended in the past months have really helped us contextualize our research and hone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=157","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":4},"title":"ESHRE 2018","date":"25th July 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"At the beginning of this month, I had the pleasure of attending one of the biggest conferences on reproduction, organized by the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). The ESHRE 2018 annual meeting took place in Barcelona, so, needless to say, I was brimming with excitement not only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ESHRE.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":235,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=235","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":5},"title":"Better regulations or no regulations? Thoughts on PET\u2019s 2018 conference","date":"13th December 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The annual conference of the Progress Educational Trust (PET), 'Make Do or Amend: Should We Update UK Fertility and Embryo Law?' could not have been more timely. Held at the beginning of December, it shortly followed emerging reports from China that the first gene-edited babies will soon be born. While\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}