SOC 2103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Fertility Clinic, Egg Cell, Menopause

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2103
• Professor: kathleenmoss

Document Summary

Commercialization of reproduction: new techniques are developed for profit (criticized for commercializing body parts and selling human tissue) Meddling with nature: how old is too old to have a child? (menopause is a natural barrier to pregnancy, but with ivf older women can have children-this can be dangerous) For men, quality of sperm decreases after age 40 (so even older men having children can be dangerous) There are lots of medical conditions that can happen with older pregnancy, and this can drain the healthcare system- also a higher increase in having multiples) Technologies can prevent child disease or abnormality by sorting out the healthy ovum and sperm. Psychologists/doctors are struggling with deciding what to do with people who are infertile in their 40s and 50s. Buckett also wants to make sure that what he is doing is not causing harm (he means cause harm to the child, but he may cause harm to the family/patient)