Institutionalizing Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Book excerpt: Reproductive medicine has been very successful at developing new therapies in recent years and people having difficulties conceiving have more options available to them than ever before. These developments have led to a new institutional landscape emerging and this innovative volume explores how health and social structures are being developed and reconfigured to take into account the increased use of assisted reproductive technologies, such as IVF treatments. Using Sweden as a central case study, it explores how the process of institutionalizing new assisted reproductive technologies includes regulatory agencies, ethical committees, political bodies and discourses, scientific communities, patient and activists groups, and entrepreneurial activities in the existing clinics and new entrants to the industry. It draws on new theoretical developments in institutional theory and outlines how health innovations are always embedded in social relations including ethical, political, and financial concerns. This book will be of interest to advanced students and academics in health management, science and technology studies, the sociology of health and illness and organisational theory.