When IVF fails : feminism, infertility, and the negotiation of normality

This book is a discourse analysis of a series of interviews with women and couples who have had IVF unsuccessfully and who have subsequently stopped treatment. Taking a feminist approach, the book argues that treatment failure produces an ongoing and profoundly gendered burden of discursive work that is oriented towards locating the self, and the engagement with IVF, as "normal".

In vitro fertilization (IVF) has been promoted as the answer to infertility. IVF, it has been said, gently corrects the mistakes of nature, is performed by caring professionals in soothing surroundings, and creates happy mothers. In response, Throsby (sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science) surveyed women and couples whose IVF procedures have failed and who have stopped treatment. She found that IVF is intensely gendered and not at all gentle to the physical and emotional well-being of those who undergo it. Further, when IVF fails, which it does about 80% of the time, those affected, particularly women, must define what is "normal" for themselves in a long and painful process. Throsby examines not only the ethical and emotional contexts of IVF, but also of other reproductive technologies whose technical failures, and their human aftermath, are also largely invisible. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In spite of the fact that almost eighty percent of all IVF cycles are unsuccessful, the dominant representations of the technology are of its success. Based on extensive interviews with women and couples who have undergone IVF unsuccessfully and who have since stopped treatment, and taking an overtly feminist approach, the book explores the ways in which IVF failure is experienced and accounted for. The book argues that IVF failure and the end of treatment have to be carefully managed over time in order to construct the self as 'normal' in the profoundly gendered context of reproductive normativity. Treatment failure is identified in the book not only as a central, but largely excluded, aspect of the experience of IVF, but also of a proliferating range of new, more controversial reproductive and genetic technologies.

Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-19 A Feminist Approach to IVF....Pages 20-53 Normalising IVF: Negotiating Nature and Technology....Pages 54-79 Coping with Consumption....Pages 80-108 Managing Visibility....Pages 109-133 Taking Responsibility....Pages 134-161 Seeking Resolution....Pages 162-186 Conclusion....Pages 187-194 Back Matter....Pages 195-223 Karen Throsby offers a discourse analysis of interviews with women & couples who have had unsuccessful IVF therapy. Taking a feminist perspective, she argues that treatment failure produces a gendered burden of discursive work orientated towards locating the self, & the engagement with IVF, as 'normal'