LIFESCIENCE: The Clone Age : Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology

[Eduardo Kac <ekac@artic.edu>]

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
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Here's the new book by Lori Andrews

ek




The Clone Age : Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology
by Lori B. Andrews

Hardcover - 288 pages 1 edition (May 1999)
Henry Holt & Company, Inc.; ISBN: 0805060804


>From Kirkus Reviews , April 12, 1999
A disturbing but insightful look at the brave new
reproductive world that is dawning. Anyone
assuming civilization isn't poised at an important
crossroads will think otherwise after reading this
book. Andrews (Black Power, White Blood, 1996),
director of the Institute for Science, Law, and
Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology,
has been involved in just about every legal and
ethical debate surrounding the murky, evolving
world of reproductive technology since the first test
tube baby was bornon the day Andrews passed her
bar exam, by the wayand she knows it's complicated
territory. She offers insights on cloning, in vitro
fertilization, selling sperm and eggs, and selective
genetics, in which parents can decide which babies
to carry full-term. At one point Andrews poses as a
woman interested in choosing sperm from a
Nobel-winning scientist via Robert Klark Graham's
Repository for Germinal Choice. Graham believes
that a putative general decline in intelligence could
be stemmed if the ``more able'' simply had more
babies. Minor glitch: Andrews is single, and
Grahams services are limited to married women. ``I
need your legal skills, he tells her. Come up with a
rule where I can give sperm to you, but not have to
give it to an unmarried black woman.'' In the same
chapter Andrews notes the lack of public health
regulations stipulating how sperm must be stored.
Remarks one California lawyer about Graham's
operation: ``If I wanted to open a sperm bank in the
deli next to the pastrami, there would be nothing to
stop me.'' This scary scenario only grows more
plausible as Andrews demonstrates that
reproductive law and funding are governed more
by political expediency than rational thought.
Remarkably free of techno-jargon, this fascinating
premillennium primer cautions readers about the
many legal and ethical potholes awaiting those who
venture into such uncharted territory. -- Copyright
©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Lowell Levin, Professor Emeritus, Yale
School of Medicine
"This is a powerful expos6, a painful account of
medical exploitation of women and the tragic
consequences."

Ruth Hubbard, Professor Emerita of
Biology, Harvard University, and author of
Exploding the Gene Myth
"Informative and easy to read, attorney Lori
Andrews's trip through the human fertility
emporium will leave you reeling. With sperm, eggs,
genes, embryos, and wombs for sale, ethical norms
and women's and children's health get short shrift.
Essential reading if you don't want the
scientific-medical-industrial complex to shape our
future."

Charles B. Inlander, author of This Won't
Hurt - And Other Lies My Doctor Tells Me
"From the very first page, The Clone Age scared
and angered me. It's a story of science gone
awry--motivated by power, greed, and fame. Lori
Andrews has vividly presented the backroom of
medicine. The book is a warning, a flare in the
dark, designed to alert the public and policymakers
that what you see may not be what you get."

______________________________________________________________________

Eduardo Kac
Assistant Professor of Art and Technology
Art and Technology Department
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 S. Michigan Avenue, Room 414
Chicago IL 60603
Phone: (312) 345-3567
Fax: (312) 345-3565
E-mail: ekac@artic.edu

http://www.ekac.org

______________________________________________________________________

Research Fellow
Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts,
University of Wales, Newport, UK
______________________________________________________________________

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