Reproductive uncertainty: Understanding the regulations on assisted reproductive technologies in China

This book provides the first sustained account of intense debates in China over the ban on single womens access to assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). Drawing on the authors fieldwork in clinics and government agencies in Beijing, it mainly explains Chinese policymakers and clinicians rationale for restricting single womens use of ARTs even if they celebrate ARTs as a success of Chinese modernization strategies. The main concept explored in this book is uncertainty. ARTs become a source of discomfort for the Chinese government and clinics because they reveal the uncontrollability of human destiny; they introduce ambiguities into genetic and legal paternity; and they undermine clinical and bureaucratic authority.

This book uses ARTs as a lens on broader social changes in China. The uncertainty of ARTs reflects the limits of Chairman Deng Xiaopings reform. It also informs that the Chinese government has reversed policies by repackaging tradition and tightening party control. The books interpretation of uncertainty challenges the linear and progressive paradigm of modernization. Chinas development path is distinct from the sequential logic of Western, modernist conceptions of history.