Jackson, Emily 
ORCID: 0000-0002-2052-2776
(2023)
The importance of listening to patients: Sarah Franklin’s Embodied progress: a cultural account of assisted conception.
In: Fovargue, Sara and Purshouse, Craig, (eds.)
Leading Works in Health Law and Ethics.
Analysing Leading Works in Law.
Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 134 - 147.
ISBN 9780367704858
Abstract
This chapter considers the significance and legacy of an ethnographic study of women and couples undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment in the United Kingdom (UK) more than 30 years ago. Embodied Progress: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception by Sarah Franklin is not ‘about’ the law which regulates IVF; indeed, the rich and nuanced account of the experience of IVF it presents is based upon interviews and observational research carried out before the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Its significance for health lawyers lies in the compelling story it tells about the contradictions and complexity of being an IVF patient. New technologies can have unexpected impacts upon people’s lives, which we know about only if we listen to patients’ experiences. Embodied Progress presents a visceral and compelling account of how the ‘treadmill’ of IVF cannot give women the ‘closure’ they anticipate at the outset. On the contrary, the ‘obstacle course’ of IVF can actually create desperation, rather than resolve it, and the multiple stages of IVF in practice make it more and more difficult to give up and stop treatment.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | https://www.routledge.com/Leading-Works-in-Health-... |
| Additional Information: | © 2024 selection and editorial matter, the editors; individual chapters, the contributors |
| Divisions: | Law |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman R Medicine > RG Gynecology and obstetrics K Law > K Law (General) |
| Date Deposited: | 24 May 2024 16:03 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Dec 2024 18:13 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/123649 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
