Reimagining disability: the screening of donor gametes and embryos in IVF

In this article, we examine how disability is figured in the imaginaries that are given shape by the reproductive projects and parental desires facilitated by the bio-medical techniques and practices of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) that involve selection and screening for disability. We investigate how some users of ARTs understand and deploy these imaginaries in ways that are both concordant with and resistant to the understanding of disability embedded within the broader sociotechnical and social imaginaries. It is through users’ deliberations, choices, responses, and expectations that we come to understand how these imaginaries are perpetuated and resisted, and how maintaining them is also dependent upon the individual actions and actors who have internalized them. Our examination is grounded in a close analysis of a small selection of interviews drawn from data gathered during a 4-year project funded by the Australian Research Council exploring the Australian experience of cross border reproductive treatment, looking particularly at surrogacy, and gamete and embryo donation. Our interviewees were individuals or couples who used gamete or embryo donation, coupled at times with surrogacy in attempting to have a child. Participants discussed their views on testing, screening, and future disability.