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Unlike most infertility books that focus on medical treatment, Healing the Infertile Family examines the social and emotional problems experienced by couples confronting infertility and suggests how they can be alleviated. In this updated edition, Gay Becker discusses her most recent study of couples experiencing infertility and offers guidelines for resolution of this common problem that will enable couples to face the future with hope.

"This sensitive and well-written anthropological study of the aged deaf describes a vital subculture of disabled persons . . Thought provoking implications are drawn from the deaf aged for the more general experience of being old in America."--Science Books and Films "A book that takes us into a community distinguished by a disability that, from an outsider's view is full of liabilities. Instead, we find assets and strengths enabling people who were born deaf or who lost their hearing in early childhood to cope with their advancing age ... . a sensitive, well-written portrait of the people and the community studied. It is a must for researchers who study the old and for those who work with the disabled."--Medical Anthropology Newsletter "Becker reveals how the adaptation to deafness early in life provides the basis for social interaction, coping mechanisms, and strong group and community bonds. Early isolation, special schooling, separation from family, and communication limited to deaf peers create long-lasting adult groups that provide exceptionaJ social support for old age . . . Becker calls attention to values and circumstances that stress and build an enduring group life. Social interdependence seems to ease the process of aging among the deaf, whereas the mainstream stress on personal autonomy and individualism may be less efficacious for the aging process." --Contemporary Sociology "The straightforward text, filled with brief histories and quotations from interviews, relates how the homogeneity and intimacy of the group develop from childhood in response to their isolation from the hearing world. It is this unity, Becker stresses, that aids the deaf elderly to better accept aging and its accompanying trials." --Booklist "Social science observation is combined with case history material in a most readable format. It is

This article examines the absence of biological relatedness in couples where the use of a third-party gamete donor casts doubt on the notion of conventional kinship. The authors observe that individuals who have used technology to create a family remediate relatedness through a dehistoricized idea of kinship in which the traditional concept is replaced with the concept of chance. The article also examines how inherited value is replaced by strategies that redefine the ways in which donor gamete parents can pass their values on to their children. This examination is accomplished by looking at how couples who used donated gametes articulate the ways in which familial relatedness is left open to chance.

This exceptional collection of essays breaks new ground by examining the global impact of infertility as a major reproductive health issue, one that has profoundly affected the lives of countless women and men. Based on original research by seventeen internationally acclaimed social scientists, it is the first book to investigate the use of reproductive technologies in non-Western countries. Provocative and incisive, it is the most substantial work to date on the subject of infertility.With infertility as the lens through which a wide range of social issues is explored, the contributors address a far-reaching array of topics: why infertility has been neglected in population studies, how the deeply gendered nature of infertility sets the blame squarely on women's shoulders, how infertility and its treatment transform family dynamics and relationships, and the distribution of medical and marital power. The chapters present informed and sophisticated investigations into cultural perceptions of infertility in numerous countries, including China, India, the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Egypt, Israel, the United States, and the nations of Europe. Poised to become the quintessential reference on infertility from an international social science perspective, Infertility around the Globe makes a powerful argument that involuntary childlessness is a complex phenomenon that has far-reaching significance worldwide