"Blood is Thicker than Water": So Where Will ART and Genetic Technology Take Us?

• In Event: Shaping the Art/Science Field: A Preview of the Handbook for Art, Science & Technology Studies - II

Abstract

Most Japanese can agree with this proverb even though we are sure the bond of adoptive parents and their adoptees is also strong. In many societies, many people place a high value on resemblance between parents and their children in physical appearance, facial expression, and so on. In this presentation, we will discuss how people recognize the resemblance between parents and their children and what value they give the resemblance, based on interviews with people who underwent ART with donated gametes in the US and Japan. In the US, people are eager to choose eye color, hair color, skin color, physical constitution and also ethnicity. However, in Japan they care about resemblance, but most insists that dark blown eye, dark hair, similar skin color, and physical constitution resemble the client. Why do people care about the resemblance between parents and their children when third parties’ gametes are used? Then, we will consider whether people seeking resemblance between a parent and the children promotes a certain direction in developing genetic technology, such as regenerating gametes from somatic cells. On the other hand, some people who are born through gamete donation are excited to find their “half siblings” by genetic tests. We would like to pose another question from the phenomena. From all these observations, we would like to speculate about what kind of ideology genetic technologies will strengthen and what they will bring to our society next.

Author

• Azumi Tsuge, Meijigakuin University