Virginie Rozee

The point of departure was an international seminar we organized in India in 2014 on the issue of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). The book includes some of those papers, along with other chapters offering a global geographical and topic-centred approach. We were motivated above all by the fact that while ART is well documented in developed and Northern countries, this is not the case for less developed ones. The book’s aim then is to better understand ART practices, legal and other frameworks, and especially the mainly social challenges posed by these technologies in different sociocultural, economic and political contexts.

It offers multidisciplinary scientific studies conducted in twelve different countries and regions ranging from Latin America to India and including Africa, Israel and Ukraine. The authors analyse both “classic” ART situations and recent techniques such as egg freezing, also applying new approaches such as weblog analysis. And a full part of the book is devoted to surrogacy, a minority practice yet the most controversial and least scientifically documented.

ART cannot be dissociated from gender issues and it varies widely throughout the world in terms of access, representations and experiences, diversity explained by the contexts specific to each country and society. However, we do identify some common issues, such as unequal access and the duty of motherhood, that do not fit into a binary “Northern versus Southern countries” opposition. ART and the challenges it raises are a matter of concern everywhere but the points of debate are not always the same.