HeyReprotech's November roundup
Things to read, watch, participate in and attend.
Good reads
Emily Green. "‘Rent My Womb’: Women Are Desperate to Become Surrogates in Mexico." Vice. 28 Oct 2022.
Sarah Todd. "What does the booming sperm-donor industry owe to people it helps conceive?" Quartz. 03 Nov 2022.
Eleanor Cummins. "After decades of setbacks, scientists make strides toward the holy grail of male birth control." STAT. 16 Nov 2022.
Karin Hammarberg et al. "We asked people why they don't donate their eggs or sperm. Their responses could help us attract more donors." The Conversation. 20 Nov 2022.
Dan Vergano. "DNA showed a mother was also her daughter’s uncle — how scientists solved this medical mystery." Grid. 25 Nov 2022.
Hannah Beech. "They were surrogates. Now they must raise the children." New York Times. 26 Nov 2022.
Good watches
"Seeds of Deceit." The Passionate Eye, CBC Gem. (Available in Canada, maybe elsewhere.) "Jan Karbaat was a renowned fertility doctor in the 1980s, 90s and 00s. Decades later, a disturbing story emerged: he’d secretly used his own semen to impregnate at least 65 women."
"Inconceivable: The Secret Business of Breeding Humans." SBS. (Available only in Australia.) "Journalist Sarah Dingle goes on a journey where she digs through hospital files, chases leads, and takes a DNA test to uncover the truth about who made her and how, but the discoveries are more disturbing the deeper she delves."
"The Secret Society." Telus Optik TV or private screening. "The Secret Society shines light on a hidden and unacknowledged women's health crisis. Complicating the already stressful and stigmatized world of infertility, women who are unable to conceive because their eggs are no longer viable are forced to take their medical needs into their own hands..." (My review in BioNews.)
"Stories We Tell." Netflix. "A film that excavates layers of myth and memory to find the elusive truth at the core of a family of storytellers."
Academic papers
Forough Noohi et al. "Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: In Whose Interests?" Law, Medicine and Ethics. 18 Nov 2022.
Jennifer Takhar. "Communicative crises in the age of anxious reproduction and fertility preservation." Consumption Markets and Culture. 25 Nov 2022.
Ongoing studies
University College London - Patient and public involvement group on male subfertility and long-term health
Leeds Beckett University - The online sperm donation project
University of Waterloo, University of Ottawa and Toronto Metropolitan University - Ova obscura: Egg donors in Canada
California Northstate University College of Health Sciences - Attachment and lie detection in donor-conceived adults
University of Leicester - Children's voices in surrogacy law
University of Ottawa - Surrogacy laws in Canada: Exploring intended parents' experiences and perspectives
ConnecteDNA, University of Manchester - One-on-one interviews with donors, parents and donor-conceived adults
University of Birmingham - Survey of LGBTQ+ parents
Upcoming events
01 Dec - free online reproductive reading group - Broadly Conceived
07 Dec - Progress Educational Trust paid online event - Annual conference: Making fertility treatment fair
10-13 Jan - in-person meeting of the British Fertility Society and the Association of Reproductive and Clinical Scientists - Reproduction in an ageing world
12-13 Jan - University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, in-person - Reproductive Ethics Conference
13 Jan - Politics of Reproduction online speakers series - Empirical research on assisted reproduction in Canada
23 and 27 Jan - online roundtables, Harvard Law School - Advancements in reproductive care and technology: perspectives from equality law
Recently unpaywalled
"Guaranteed Baby Success 100% Refund Package." HeyReprotech. 16 Mar 2021.