title: "Cycling overseas": care, commodification, and stratification in cross-border reproductive travel.
abstract: Cross-border reproductive travel involves the movement of patients to undertake assisted reproductive treatment through technologies, such as in vitro fertilization and associated procedures otherwise denied to them due to cost, access, or regulatory restrictions. Based on fieldwork in Thailand, the United States, and the Czech Republic, we explore the commodification of reproductive bodies within this trade and the reduction of the nurturing affective labor of reproduction to exchange value. Second, we examine the intensification and globalization of the stratification of reproduction. These inequalities are illustrated though discussion of the trade in poor women's bodies for surrogacy and ova donation. Even reproductive body parts, ova, sperm, and embryos are stratified-marketed according to place of origin, the characteristics of their donors, and gender.
authors.affiliation: School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Herston, Brisbane, Australia. a.whittaker2@uq.edu.au
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Whittaker
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Speier
mesh_terms: D018153:Czech Republic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D008297:Male; D057193:Medical Tourism; D027724:Reproductive Techniques, Assisted; D056910:Republic of Korea; D012880:Skin Pigmentation; D013785:Thailand; D014019:Tissue Donors; D014481:United States