137 - Thematic Session. No Sex, Just a Baby: Birth without Sex

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Advances in medications and medical techniques in the 20th century have made human reproduction without sex a routinized and widely accepted practice. The first “test tube baby,” Louise Brown, was born in 1978. In 2012, over 61,000 babies were born with the help of IVF. This session will address issues such as reluctance to admit the need for medical help to conceive a child, the impact of infertility treatment on men’s and women’s sexuality and sexual relationships, religious views on procreation without sex, and attitudes toward sexuality as the underlying link between views on contraception, abortion, and assisted reproductive technologies. It will also touch on views of sexuality, aging, and menopause through the topic of upper age limits on the use of donor eggs and reproductive technologies.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Julia McQuillan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Presider

• Rosalie A. Torres Stone, Clark University

Individual Presentations

• Medicalization’s Marginalization: The Role of Gender, Class, and Sexuality in the Medicalization of Infertility - Ann V. Bell, University of Delaware

• Doing IVF for Pregnancy or for Profit: A Comparative Survey of Women’s Bodily Experiences - Rene Almeling, Yale University

• Men, Masculinity and Infertility - Liberty Walther Barnes, University of Cambridge

Discussant

• Susan Markens, City University of New York-Lehman College