"Saving Embryos: Waking Up Christian Logics in Reproductive Technologies," 4S Conference, New Orleans, LA

Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) conference was rewarding! I enjoyed participating on and co-organizing a double-panel on "Capitalizing Fertility: Feminist STS Approaches to Reproductive Bioeconomies." I deviated a bit from the central thrust of the papers, most focused on capital, to encourage greater attention to the role Christianity plays in advancing the capitalized fertility industry. 

Here's an excerpt from my remarks:

In my presentation today, I turn our attention to the Christian logics at play within reproductive technologies and economies that are less commonly analyzed by STS scholars. I have come to believe these logics are important for feminist STS scholars to take seriously and will explain how I have come to this view. I am taking the fact that we are sharing this hotel space with the National Baptist Convention as an encouraging sign for us to pay more attention to Christianity, in its explicit and more subtle expressions.  

First, I will reflect on lessons learned from scholarship in this tradition that addresses Christianity. Then, drawing upon ethnographic research from 2008-2018, I will offer a glimpse inside programs that manage embryos leftover from IVF, including a prominent “embryo adoption” program established by “pro-life” Christians (which I call Blossom) and a premier biobank for human embryonic stem cell research (which I call REDEEM Biobank). In my work, I have examined the medical, economic, and religious connotations of saving to trace the various alignments and stakes of them across these settings.  Today, I use saving in a narrower sense to focus on the explicit and secularized Christian logics of salvation, resurrection, redemption subtending both programs that strive to convert IVF leftovers into renewed form. To conclude, I will trace how some of the same Christian logics are propelling the contemporary antiabortion movement, what this means for reproductive justice, and why we should care.... Louisiana is an exemplar place for seeing how Christian saving logics, expressed through embryo personhood politics, have real and wide implications.