Silences, omissions, and oversimplification? The UK debate on mitochondrial donation

Date

2021

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Elsevier

Type

Article

Peer reviewed

Yes

Abstract

Drawing on scholarship from ignorance studies, this paper uses the case of the UK debates on mitochondrial donation (2012-2015) to emphasise the importance of deploying an analysis of ignorance which goes beyond medical and safety concerns when scrutinising debates or campaigns around new reproductive technologies. In contrast to what happened with previous reproductive health treatments or drugs, the potential medical risks of mitochondrial donation were explicitly acknowledged and examined during its public and parliamentary discussions. However, I show, using the concepts of ‘acknowledged unknowns’ and ‘ignored knowns’, how the attention drawn to the medical risks contributed to obscure the assessment of its economic and social impacts by silencing key knowledge regarding the limitations of mitochondrial donation in relation to the potential beneficiaries, the scope of the techniques, their alternatives and their costs. This paper therefore calls for a more systematic use of an integrated analytical framework of ignorance to be applied in the field of reproductive public policies, paying particular attention not only to the ways medical risks are addressed, but also to the type of knowledge and disciplines this allows to silence or side-line in the framing and assessment of new biotechnologies.

Description

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.

Keywords

Ignorance studies, Mitochondrial donation, reproductive technologies, UK biomedical politics, Three-parent baby, Ignored known

Citation

Herbrand, C. (2021) Silences, omissions, and oversimplification? The UK debate on mitochondrial donation. Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online.

Rights

Research Institute