Assisted Reproductive Technologies in the Third Phase

Following the birth of the first test-tube baby in 1978, Assisted Reproductive Technologies became available to a small number of people in high-income countries able to afford the cost of private treatment, a period seen as the First Phase of ARTs. In the Second Phase, these treatments became increasingly available to cosmopolitan global elites. Today, this picture is changing albeit slowly and unevenly as ARTs are becoming more widely available. While, for many, accessing infertility treatments remains a dream, these are beginning to be viewed as a standard part of reproductive healthcare and family planning. This volume highlights this Third Phase the opening up of ARTs to new constituencies in terms of ethnicity, geography, education, and class.