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This assessment of Britain's influential 14 day rule governing embryo research explores how and why it became the de facto global standard for research into human fertilisation and embryology, arguing that its influence and stability offers valuable lessons for successful biological translation.One of the most important features of the 14 day rule, the authors claim, is its reliance on sociological as well as ethical, legislative, regulatory and scientific principles. The careful integration of social expectations and perceptions, as well as sociological definitions of the law and morality, into the development of a robust legislative infrastructure of ‘human fertilisation and embryology', enabled what has come to be known as the Warnock Consensus – a solid and enduring public acceptance that has enabled successive parliamentary approval for controversial areas of scientific research in the UK, such as stem cell research and mitochondrial donation, for over 30 years. These important sociological insights are increasingly relevant to new biotranslational challenges such as human germline gene editing and the use of AI assisted technologies in human reproduction. As the legislation around the 14 day rule begins to be reviewed worldwide, the important lessons we can learn from its global and enduring significance will apply not only to future legislation governing embryo research, but to the future of biological translation more widely.An important volume for those interested in reproductive studies, biogovernance and biological translation, it is suitable for researchers, clinicians and students in medicine, biosciences, sociology, and science and technology studies.

This new edition of Sarah Franklin's classic monograph on the development of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) includes two entirely new chapters reflecting on the relevance of the book's findings in the context of the past two decades and providing a ‘state-of-the-art'review of the field today.Over the past 25 years, both the assisted conception industry and the academic field of reproductive studies have grown enormously. IVF, in particular, is belatedly becoming recognised as one of the most influential technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a far-reaching set of implications that have to date been underestimated, understudied and under-reported. This pioneering text was the first to explore the emergence of commercial IVF in the United Kingdom, where the technique was originally developed. During the 1980s, the British Parliament devised a unique system of comprehensive national regulation of assisted reproduction amidst fractious public and media debate over IVF and embryo research. Franklin chronicles these developments and explores their significance in relation to classic anthropological debates about the meanings of kinship, gender and the'biological facts'of parenthood. Drawing on extensive personal interviews with women and couples undergoing IVF, as well as ethnographic fieldword in early IVF clinics, the book explores the unique demands of the IVF technique. In richly detailed chapters, it documents the ‘topsy-turvy'world of IVF, and how the experience of undergoing IVF changes its users in ways they had not anticipated. Franklin argues that such experiences reveal a crucial feature of translational biomedical procedures more widely – namely, that these are ‘hope technologies'that paradoxically generate new uncertainties and risks in the very space of their supposed resolution. The final chapter closely engages with the ‘hope technology'concept, as well as the idea of ‘having to try'and uses these frames to link contemporary reproductive studies to core sociological and anthropological arguments about economy, society and technology.In the context of rapid fertility decline and huge growth in the fertility industry, this volume is even more relevant today than when it was first published at the dawn of what Franklin calls the era of'iFertility'. Embodied Progress is an essential read for all social science academics and students with an interested in the burgeoning new field of reproductive studies. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners working in the fields of reproductive health, biomedicine and policy.

Technologies of Procreation bridges the gap between medical technology and cultural values. It looks at the ways in which the'technologies of procreation'affect society from an anthropological perspective.