Signs
-
The medical tourism sector in India has attracted global attention, given its phenomenal growth in the past decade. India is second only to Thailand in the number of medical tourists that it attracts every year. Estimates indicate that the medical tourism market in India could grow from $310 million in 2005 to $2 billion by 2012. ⋯ Ironically, this is in sharp contrast with the acute neglect of the health care needs of Indian women. The Indian government is vigorously promoting medical tourism by providing tax concessions and by creating an environment enabling it to thrive. However, there is a distinct disjunction between the neglect of the health care needs of ordinary Indians and public policy that today subsidizes the health care of wealthy foreigners.
-
Historical Article
Fertility tourism: circumventive routes that enable access to reproductive technologies and substances.
“Fertility tourism” is a journalistic eye‐catcher focusing on the phenomenon of patients who search for a reproductive treatment in another country in order to circumvent laws, access restrictions, or waiting lists in their home country. In Europe, the reasons why people seek reproductive treatments outside their national boundaries are quite diverse, in part because regulations differ so much among countries. Beginning with four examples of people who crossed borders for an in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment with gamete donation, this article provides some insight into these transnational circumvention practices based on material from ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in Spain, Denmark, and the Czech Republic. ⋯ For prospective parents, it holds a promise of generating offspring who could pass as biogenetically conceived children. Therefore, IVF with gamete donation is mostly modeled after conceptions of nature. Through anonymity and concealment it creates forms of nonrelatedness that leave space for future imaginings and traces of transnational genetic creators.