Doing and undoing nation through ART: a Franco–American comparison

This article explores a Franco–American comparison of assisted reproductive technology (ART), specifically as it relates to sex selection and cross-border reproduction. As a basis for comparison, the nation can materialize in the form of state structure just as much as in cultural–economic assemblages or ideologies that breach geopolitical boundaries. By juxtaposing many contrasts between the French and US contexts – departure versus destination country, highly regulated versus deregulated governance, medical versus social applications, and access (or lack thereof) via public versus private health insurance sectors – it may be difficult to imagine how these extremes occupy a common continuum of globalized market channels. I suggest that invisible or semi-visible reproductive practices along with ART governance provide an avenue to stake out or protect the ‘French’ way of being and doing ART just as much as they make the ‘American’ way simultaneously elusive and easy to appropriate. Ultimately, both the French and American approaches to ART collude in the institutionalization of globalized markets. Through the case of cross-border and (sex) selective ART, it is possible to see how both the French and the Americans are involved in the undoing and doing of nation via ART as global assemblage.