Book Reviews : DEBORAH LYNN STEINBERG, Bodies in Glass: Genetics, Eugenics and Embryo Ethics. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997, 224 pp., £35.00 hardback, £15.00 paperback
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399800700416 |
| Author | Sally Sheldon |
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
591
REFERENCES
Connell,
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Masculinities.
Cambridge:
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Giddens,
A.
(1984)
The
Constitution
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Society:
Outline
of
the
Theory
of Structura-
tion.
Berkeley:
University
of California
Press.
West,
C.
and
Fenstermaker,
S.
(1995)
’Doing
Difference’,
Gender
and
Society
9:
8-37.
West,
C.
and
Zimmerman,
D.
(1987)
’Doing
Gender’,
Gender
and
Society
1:
125-51.
BETSY
STANKO
Department
of
Law,
Brunel
University,
Uxbridge,
Middlesex,
UK
DEBORAH
LYNN
STEINBERG,
Bodies
in
Glass:
Genetics,
Eugenics
and
Embryo
Ethics.
Manchester:
Manchester
University
Press,
1997,
224
pp.,
£35.00
hardback,
£15.00
paperback.
Bodies
in
Glass
is
an
interesting
and
thought-provoking
book
which
deserves
to
be
widely
read.
Steinberg’s
focus
is
on
IVF
and
IVF-based
genetic
screening
practices,
which
she
analyses
through
a
close
and
insightful
reading
of
various
texts.
In
par-
ticular,
she
examines
the
responses
to
her
own
survey
of
IVF
practitioners,
the
reports
of
the
Voluntary
Licensing
Authority
(the
forerunner
to
the
Human
Fertilisation
and
Embryology
Authority)
and
the
text
of
the
1990
Human
Fertilisation
and
Embryol-
ogy
Act
itself.
Steinberg
starts
with
a
critique
of
some
feminist
writing
on
infertility
which,
she
argues,
has
either
posited
IVF
technologies
as
neutral
science
which
has
the
potential
to
provide
’choices’
for
(all)
women,
and
other
literature
which
has
vilified
IVF
as
bad
for
(all)
women
who
are
constructed
as
its
’victims’.1
Steinberg
aims
to
go
beyond
this
dichotomy
through
the
elaboration
of
an
’anti-oppressive
feminist
standpoint’
posi-
tion
which
avoids
universalizing
from
the
experiences
of
particular
groups.
In
other
words,
she
attempts
to
develop
a
model
for
the
analysis
of
power
which
does
not
con-
struct
women
as
passive
victims,
yet
which
contextualizes
their
agency
within
complex
relations
of
social
inequality.
This
theoretical
framework
leads
her
to
embark
on
a
close
and
detailed
evaluation
which
posits
professional
authorship
(‘authoria/logics’)
of
the
technologies
as
the
context
in
which
women’s
agency
and
reproductive
possibilities
are
discursively
delimited.
Her
particular
focus
is
on
a
consideration
of the
racist,
classist
and
(hetero)sexist
and
ableist
dynamics
which
constitute
the
discursive
field
of
IVF
Her
analysis
is
informed
throughout
by
the
observation
that
complex
power
relations
not
only
underpin
the
social
conditions
within
which
IVF
technologies
are
used,
but
are
embedded
both
in
the
conditions
of
its
invention
and
in
the
nature
of
those
tech-
nologies
developed.
In
the
first
part
of
the
book,
Steinberg
attempts
to
deconstruct
various
’texts’
of
IVF
to
examine
the
authoria/logics
underpinning
IVF
as
a
professional
praxis
and
the
ways
in
which
IVF
discourse
(re)produces
norms
of
female
reproduction.
Her
analy-
sis
leads
her
to
conclude
that
IVF
renders
women
invisible,
with
professional
dis-
course
emphasizing
the
scientific
character
of
the
treatment
and
directing
attention
away
from
the
involvement
and
position
of
the
women
who
carry
the
burden
of
the
invasive
treatments
involved
in
the
process.
In
the
second
part,
Steinberg
goes
on
to
consider
eugenics
and
genetic
screening.
A
close
examination
of the
ways
in
which
IVF
practitioners
conceptualize
and
nor-
malize
selective
rationalities
enables
her
to
argue
convincingly
that
genetic
tech-
nologies
work
to
reproduce
existing
social
structures
of
race,
class,
gender
and
heterosexuality.
Drawing
on
her
own
survey
of
practitioners,
she
concludes
that
IVF
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