Sarah Franklin explores the history and future of in vitro fertilization (IVF) thirty-five years and five million babies after its initial success as a form of technologically-assisted human reproduction.

Thirty-five years after its initial success as a form of technologically assisted human reproduction, and five million miracle babies later, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has become a routine procedure worldwide. In Biological Relatives, Sarah Franklin explores how the normalization of IVF has changed how both technology and biology are understood. Drawing on anthropology, feminist theory, and science studies, Franklin charts the evolution of IVF from an experimental research technique into a global technological platform used for a wide variety of applications, including genetic diagnosis, livestock breeding, cloning, and stem cell research. She contends that despite its ubiquity, IVF remains a highly paradoxical technology that confirms the relative and contingent nature of biology while creating new biological relatives. Using IVF as a lens, Franklin presents a bold and lucid thesis linking technologies of gender and sex to reproductive biomedicine, contemporary bioinnovation, and the future of kinship.

"[A] well-researched, conceptually rigorous, and thoroughly interdisciplinary discussion of new reproductive technologies. . . . This cutting-edge volume is essential for scholars and practitioners interested in the ethics of reproductive technologies, technology theory case studies, sex/gender reinforcing and challenging practices, and medical humanities in general. . . . Highly recommended. Upper division undergraduates and above." - Choice

"“Being well informed about these areas of contemporary biology requires familiarity with both natural and social sciences. Sarah Franklin’s Biological Relatives provides a much-needed account of one such area…. Her range is wide, but her examples are precise and disciplined. Reading the book illuminates ways to see across divides, and there are some striking images along the way.” " - Science Magazine

"“Biological Relatives presents a complex examination of a topic that has been too often simplified or fragmented and provides feminist scholars of science with a new framework through which to analyze the relationship between biology and technology in a post-IVF age. . . . The book’s willingness to dwell with the many ambiguities of IVF—what Franklin refers to as its ‘curious’ elements—thus makes an important contribution to our understanding of what it means to live in a post-IVF age.” " - Configurations

"“Biological Relatives goes far beyond earlier studies to provide new and valuable insight into the history of IVF. These include new perspectives on both complex evolutionary processes of biology and the overall historical descriptions about feminist debates over IVF in connection with the notion of kinship and women’s actual voices. Finally, Franklin successfully cultivates a novel and constructive account of the dynamics, complexity and hybridity in the history of IVF in connection with related science fields and social and cultural areas.”" - Medical History

"“Franklin’s rigorously researched and exhaustive look at ‘the normalization of I.V.F.’ grounds the procedure firmly in technology and science, not to mention philosophy, anthropology, agriculture, feminism, and history.”" - Lilith

"Biological Relatives would fit well in advanced undergraduate courses in medical anthropology and sociology, gender and reproduction, feminist theory, and social theories of technology. It will also be invaluable in graduate coursework across a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, feminist studies, and science and technology studies, as well as for researchers and clinicians who work at the perpetually unstable frontiers of reproduction, bioinnovation, and kinship." - American Ethnologist

"“Not since Donna J. Haraway’s 1997 book, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©Meets_OncoMouse™ have I read such a major contribution to theorizing technoscience. … The book leaves us with a cultural rendering and an archeology of a technology, from the ambivalent relations with its form as a reproductive technology to the many ways that IVF is also a tool itself in the coevolving biotech industries. IVF is not only biologically reproductive, but also technologically reproductive. This book should be read by anyone interested in theorizing biotechnology and the future of social relations.”" - American Journal of Sociology

"“Biological Relatives amounts to an impressive and important exploration of the curious world, effects, and various 'lives' of IVF. It is a book that dares to be multidimensional and non-reductionist, and which shows the complexity of relationships, biological and technological as well as familial. … [A] much-needed, important, and sensitive analysis of IVF and the changed relationships it introduces to biology, technology, and kinship.”" - Technology and Culture

"[T]his exciting book delivers a powerful theory of biology and technology that challenges scholars of Science and Technology Studies, the anthropology of kinship, and gender and feminist theory to consider and respond. It will be a must-read for any scholar of IVF,synthetic biology, the anthropology of science and nature, or gender studies.” " - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute