Amy Speier
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479827664
- eISBN:
- 9781479858996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479827664.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter follows North Americans who turn to the Internet where they learn of reproductive travel to the Czech Republic, and become diligent consumers. This chapter follows largely female ...
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This chapter follows North Americans who turn to the Internet where they learn of reproductive travel to the Czech Republic, and become diligent consumers. This chapter follows largely female patients as they enter virtual biosocial communities, where they join on-line gendered support groups and engage in bio-medical global citizenship. We encounter, with the North American patients, IVF brokers who are packaging fertility holidays that promise a stress-free IVF cycle in a relaxing European setting. The marketing of fertility holidays online speaks to North American hopes, both for a child that resembles them but also for a particular kind of healthcare.Less
This chapter follows North Americans who turn to the Internet where they learn of reproductive travel to the Czech Republic, and become diligent consumers. This chapter follows largely female patients as they enter virtual biosocial communities, where they join on-line gendered support groups and engage in bio-medical global citizenship. We encounter, with the North American patients, IVF brokers who are packaging fertility holidays that promise a stress-free IVF cycle in a relaxing European setting. The marketing of fertility holidays online speaks to North American hopes, both for a child that resembles them but also for a particular kind of healthcare.
Amy Speier
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479827664
- eISBN:
- 9781479858996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479827664.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
I introduce the general phenomenon of reproductive travel and survey the existing literature about this type of medical tourism. I apply feminist and globalization theories to this phenomenon as I ...
More
I introduce the general phenomenon of reproductive travel and survey the existing literature about this type of medical tourism. I apply feminist and globalization theories to this phenomenon as I claim these holidays are political economies of hope (Rose and Novas 2005). I sketch the primary actors of this global care chain: IVF brokers who promise lower middle class North Americans they can have blonde-haired, blue-eyed babies, a European vacation, and excellent health care at affordable prices as well as the North Americans who travel to the Czech Republic for IVF using egg donation. I end the first chapter with a brief discussion of my ethnographic methodology and a layout of the rest of the chapters of the book.Less
I introduce the general phenomenon of reproductive travel and survey the existing literature about this type of medical tourism. I apply feminist and globalization theories to this phenomenon as I claim these holidays are political economies of hope (Rose and Novas 2005). I sketch the primary actors of this global care chain: IVF brokers who promise lower middle class North Americans they can have blonde-haired, blue-eyed babies, a European vacation, and excellent health care at affordable prices as well as the North Americans who travel to the Czech Republic for IVF using egg donation. I end the first chapter with a brief discussion of my ethnographic methodology and a layout of the rest of the chapters of the book.
Amy Speier
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479827664
- eISBN:
- 9781479858996
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479827664.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Millions of North Americans are priced out of North America’s expensive reproductive medicine industry. Ultimately, women learn about the possibility of doing IVF abroad, and this book reveals the ...
More
Millions of North Americans are priced out of North America’s expensive reproductive medicine industry. Ultimately, women learn about the possibility of doing IVF abroad, and this book reveals the layers of desire that motivate them to travel halfway across the world in their quest for parenthood. A global marketing chain has brilliantly packaged “fertility holidays”: a European vacation alongside a healthcare system where doctors really care and want you to have your beautiful white baby. Brokers promise couples that they will experience a more relaxing IVF cycle while also assuring them Czech doctors offer better care along with the highest standards of technology. Ultimately, my book reveals the alienation of poor patients in the U.S., their active response as they assume the role of global consumers of health care. Fertility clinics around the globe have begun to develop marketing schemes that cater to this North American desire for care, since it is an obvious deficiency in our healthcare system.Less
Millions of North Americans are priced out of North America’s expensive reproductive medicine industry. Ultimately, women learn about the possibility of doing IVF abroad, and this book reveals the layers of desire that motivate them to travel halfway across the world in their quest for parenthood. A global marketing chain has brilliantly packaged “fertility holidays”: a European vacation alongside a healthcare system where doctors really care and want you to have your beautiful white baby. Brokers promise couples that they will experience a more relaxing IVF cycle while also assuring them Czech doctors offer better care along with the highest standards of technology. Ultimately, my book reveals the alienation of poor patients in the U.S., their active response as they assume the role of global consumers of health care. Fertility clinics around the globe have begun to develop marketing schemes that cater to this North American desire for care, since it is an obvious deficiency in our healthcare system.
