This two-day Franco-American workshop seeks to compare the cultural, ethical, religious, historical and policy implications of how reproductive technologies have developed and now impact our two national contexts. In both countries, advanced reproductive technologies have long been in development and are now in widespread use. France and the United States share a certain number of similar conceptions relative to kinship and gender, and are both undergoing comparable evolutions in the creation of new family configurations. Yet in France, public discourse calling for “social solidarity” with people experiencing infertility is widespread and public payment and access is designed and tightly controlled through biomedical regulation. In the US, by contrast, “privacy” of family life and “consumer choice” dominate the public discussion, while few insurance schemes actually cover reproductive technology expenses and market access shapes both popular imaginaries and practical use.

Organized by Rayna Rapp (NYU), Linda Gordon (NYU), Séverine Mathieu (EPHE-PSL, Paris) and Jennifer Merchant (Université Paris 2, Paris)

THURSDAY, APRIL 12

10:00-10:30 a.m.  Welcome and Introduction
Rayna Rapp, Séverine Mathieu, Jennifer Merchant  

10:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.  Roundtable I
Destabilizing and Restabilizing “Family Values”
Rene Almeling: GUYnecology: The Missing Science of How Men’s Health Matters for Reproduction
Rajani Bathia: “Family futurism in the Era of Speculative Reproduction and Ambivalent Ethics”
Martine Gross: “Becoming  fathers by surrogacy: fatherhood, parenthood and biogenetic links”
Hélène Malmanche : “ ‘A Child From Both Of Us’ ” : French Lesbian Couples Choosing ROPA Techniques (Reception of Oocytes from PArtner)”

2:30-4:30 p.m.  Roundtable II
Religious Challenges and Techno-assisted Forms of Family-making
Risa Cromer: “Finding Homes for Embryos: Race and Responsibility in Christian Embryo Adoption”
Séverine Mathieu: “A secular embryo? Embryo donation in France”
Enric Porqueres: “Techno-assisted forms of family making in recent Catholicism”

4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Linda Gordon: Comments and conclusion of the day. Discussion

FRIDAY, APRIL 13

9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.  Roundtable III
Biomedical Science and National Social Policies
Dana-Ain Davis: “The Space Between Womb and Home: Race, NICUs as a Technology used to Assist in Reproduction”
Heather Jacobson: “Ideological Assumptions about and Structural Barriers to Third Party Reproduction: How Macro-level Structures and Discourse Shape and Influence Micro-level Decision-making and Interactions.”
Noémie Merleau-Ponty: “In Vitro Gametogenesis: What do Biologists Say about It?”
Charis Thompson: “Selecting Societies in the Age of Genome Editing and Reproductive and Regenerative Technologies “

2:00 – 4:30 p.m.  Roundtable IV
ART: Ongoing and Future Controversies
Simone Bateman: “Looking more closely at the assistance and the technology in ART”
Anne-Sophie Giraud and Manuela Perrotta: “The only way is RCT: The long terms effects of evidence-based medicine and the debate on add-ons in IVF”.
Jennifer Merchant: “Christian, Jewish and Muslim approaches to human genome editing”.
Rayna Rapp: “Banking on DNA? ”.
Natali Valdez: “Conceivable Comparisons: Epigenetic Thinking and Obesity During Pregnancy”

4:30 p.m. Comments and Conclusion
Linda Gordon, Séverine Mathieu, Jennifer Merchant, Rayna Rapp

In English

Organized with the generous support of the Institute of French Studies (NYU); Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE-PSL); the CNRS (GSRL); and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF)