Reproductive_technologies

Reproductive technology is a term for all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others.

Assisted reproductive technology

Main article: Assisted reproductive technology

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is the use of reproductive technology to treat infertility. This is today the only application of reproductive technology to increase reproduction that is used routinely. Examples include in vitro fertilisation and its possible expansions.

• artificial insemination
• cloning (see human cloning for the special case of human beings)
• cryopreservation of sperm, oocytes, embryos
• embryo transfer
• hormone treatment
• in vitro fertilisation
  • intracytoplasmic sperm injection
• preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)
• surrogacy
• testicular sperm extraction (TESE)
• Gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT)

Contraception

Contraception may also be viewed as a form of reproductive technology, as it enables people to control their fertility.

Others

The following techniques, in contrast to ART, are not yet routinely used. In fact, most of them are even at the developmental stage:

• artificial wombs
• germinal choice technology
• in vitro parthenogenesis
• reprogenetics

Controversy

Many issues of reproductive technology have led to bioethical issues being raised, since it often alters the assumptions that lie behind existing systems of sexual and reproductive morality.

Besides, ethic issued of human enhancement arise when reproductive technology has evolved to be a potential technology for not only reproductively inhibited people but even for otherwise reproductively healthy people.

In fiction

Aldous Huxley\'s 1932 novel Brave New World was one of the earliest works to anticipate the possible social consequences of reproductive technology. Its largely negative view was reversed when the author revisited the same themes in his utopian final novel, Island, 1962.

Gattaca is a 1997 science fiction drama film drawing on concerns over technological developments which facilitate reprogenetics, and the possible consequences of such biotechnology for society. It also explores the theme of destiny and the ways in which it can and does govern lives. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes.

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