Globalisation of birth markets: a case study of assisted reproductive technologies in India

The escalation of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) in India into a veritable fertility industry is the result of a multitude of reasons. This paper places the bio-genetic industry within the larger political economy framework of globalisation and privatisation, thus employing a framework that is often omitted from discussions on ARTs, but has direct and significant bearings on the ART industry in India. As markets for human organs, tissues and reproductive body parts experience unprecedented growth, the limits of what can or should be bought and sold continue to be pushed. As such, bodies have emerged as sale-worthy economic capital. Commercial flows of reproductive material create and deploy the division of the body into parts over which ownership is claimed, in the process following 'modern routes of capital' and raising issues of structural inequality

For Motherhood and for Market: Commercial Surrogacy in India

The key features of globalization, such as the crossing of boundaries, convergences, transitional economies, commercial opportunities and the market forces are significant in the context of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). Originating in the West, in recent years these technologies have proliferated under neoliberal economic globalization, wherein the ideology of trade without borders is central (Gupta and Richters 2008). A transnationalized fertility market is created wherein repro..

”The invisible”: Participant's experiences in clinical trials

Background: The paper discussing the perspectives of clinical trial participants about the various aspects of CTs is based on the primary research conducted by Sama in 2012-13. Methodology: In-depth interviews were conducted with 36 CT participants from the states of New Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. In addition to CT participants, other key informants including investigators, representatives of Contract Research Organizations (CROs), sponsor, Ethics Committee (EC) members etc. were also interviewed to develop a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of the CT sector. Findings and Discussion: The paper describes the perspectives of participants on the relevant aspects of recruitment into CTs, reasons for participation in CTs, informed consent, adverse events and compensation. The role played by the push and pull factors in recruitment, the information asymmetry, the power imbalance between the health-care provider and seeker, the role of sociocultural factors, etc., are explored in the paper. Combined with the insights from other stakeholders, the study gives an understanding about the chasm between regulations and realities in the Indian CT sector. Further, the paper briefly explores the recent changes and amendments in the laws governing the CT sector that is aimed at improving the conduct of CTs and uphold the rights of participants. Conclusion: Participants are the most important stakeholders in a CT setting. It is imperative that their voices are heard and their rights upheld for the ethical conduct of CTs

The Means or the End?: Experiences of Clinical Trial “Subjects” in India

10.1353/asb.2013.0065Asian Bioethics Review54344-36

A Feminist Exploration of ‘Populationism’: Engaging Contemporary Forms of Population Control

Following the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 in Cairo, which prompted a discursive shift from population control to reproductive health and rights in international development, policy experts and scholars have relegated population control to the realm of history. This presents a unique challenge to feminist critics who seek to identify manifestations of population control in the present. In this article, we consider the potential of ‘populationism’ as terminology that may assist in clarifying varied new manifestations of population control. We explicate three interrelated populationist strategies that focus on optimizing numbers (demo), spaces (geo), and life itself (bio). Through our elaboration of these three populationisms and their interaction, we seek to inspire feminist, intersectional responses to the pernicious social, economic and environmental problems that technocratic populationist interventions obscure

Confronting Populationism: Feminist Challenges to Population Control in an Era of Climate Change

In this themed section, we identify three forms of populationism and bring them into conversation, which allows us to mount feminist challenges to present day forms of population control. These interventions are timely and necessary because of the continued prevalence of population control ideology and population alarmism in sustainable development and climate change policy and programs. We issue a direct challenge to scholarship that links population reduction with climate change adaptation and mitigation and the survival of the planet. The introduction provides an overview of our key argument, that seemingly disparate phenomena—technocratic approaches to fertility control, climate change securitization, Zika assemblages, neo-Malthusian articulations of the Anthropocene, and ‘climate-smart’ agriculture—are entangled with and expressions of demo, geo and biopopulationisms. We employ feminist critiques to contest these manifestations of population control that restrict bodies, reinforce boundaries, and create spaces of exclusion and violence

New Cannibal Markets

Thanks to recent progress in biotechnology, surrogacy, transplantation of organs and tissues, blood products or stem-cell and gamete banks are now widely used throughout the world. These techniques improve the health and well-being of some human beings using products or functions that come from the body of others. Growth in demand and absence of an appropriate international legal framework have led to the development of a lucrative global trade in which victims are often people living in insecure conditions who have no other ways to survive than to rent or sell part of their body. This growing market, in which parts of the human body are bought and sold with little respect for the human person, displays a kind of dehumanization that looks like a new form of slavery. This book is the result of a collective and multidisciplinary reflection organized by a group of international researchers working in the field of medicine and social sciences. It helps better understand how the emergence of new health industries may contribute to the development of a global medical tourism. It opens new avenues for reflection on technologies that are based on appropriation of parts of the body of others for health purposes, a type of practice that can be metaphorically compared to cannibalism. Are these the fi rst steps towards a proletariat of men- and women-objects considered as a reservoir of products of human origin needed to improve the health or well-being of the better-off? The book raises the issue of the uncontrolled use of medical advances that can sometimes reach the anticipations of dystopian literature and science fiction