From the cyborg embryo to the sacred embryo

ARIZA, LUCÍA

Santa Clara, California

Conferencia; 50th Berkshire Conference of Women Historians; 2023

University of Santa Clara

Since the birth of the first person conceived through in vitro fertilization in 1978, the embryo has not ceased to be the object of intense sociotechnical manipulation and sociological scrutiny. Latin America has not been an exception to this, yet the fact that in the region sexual and reproductive rights have been both a receding horizon and an increasingly disputed field have made of the embryo an ambivalent object. While scientific and feminist/secular discourses have enthroned the merely biological and dependent character of the embryo, religious (and especially Catholic) frames have insisted on its sacred, person-like qualities. This polarization between secular and religious understandings of the embryo has obscured the existence of sensibilities where progressive, rights-based understandings of sexuality and reproduction coexist with notions of the embryo’s sacredness, uniqueness, and autonomy. Based on interviews with IVF doctors and patients in Argentina, and an analysis of media discourses, this presentation will explore this heterogeneity of perceptions towards the embryo that clash with its dichotomous, secular vs. religious understandings.