Global IVF, Infertility, and Emergency Contraception in the Middle East and North Africa

The three works under review address sterility, fertility, and pregnancy and offer Middle Eastern and North African perspectives on the experience of childlessness and reproductive technologies. They examine in vitro fertilization (IVF) and emergency contraception (EC) as elements of population health and reproductive politics in the Middle East and North Africa. Global IVF is controversial because it touches key issues in global feminism, global health equity, global health governance, and human rights. IVF technology access touches on a larger debate about the commoditization of health. Inhorn rejects the neoliberal terms usually applied to IVF, reproductive tourist, consumer, agent, or opportunist. the books raise issues of human rights and governance. Inhorn argues for access to IVF as a human right, challenging legal and economic limits blockages imposed on IVF services by national governments that force infertile people to flee their national health care systems and become reproductive outlaws.