The experiences of infertility and childlessness, while not worse than other griefs and disappointments people experience, are nevertheless distinctive in a number of important respects. Unlike other griefs, they often take place in private, with no body, no funeral, and no public acknowledgement of the loss. In her profound and wise theology of childnessness, Emma Nash takes her own story as a starting point, examining several distinctive features of this painful human experience. She asks what biblical and theological resources offer consolation, and what liberative action individuals and churches might take to make an appropriate response. Weaving trauma theology together with personal experience, Nash offers a profound and heartfelt theological reflection which breaks the barriers between pastoral resource and carefully constructed theology.

The Human Embryo in vitro explores the ways in which UK law engages with embryonic processes under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended), the intellectual basis of which has not been reconsidered for almost thirty years. McMillan argues that in regulating 'the embryo' - that is, a processual liminal entity in itself - the law is regulating for uncertainty. This book offers a fuller understanding of how complex biological processes of development and growth can be better aligned with a legal framework that purports to pay respect to the embryo while also allowing its destruction. To do so it employs an anthropological concept, liminality, which is itself concerned with revealing the dynamics of process. The implications of this for contemporary regulation of artificial reproduction are fully explored, and recommendations are offered for international regimes on how they can better align biological reality with social policy and law.

How the fear of malpractice affects mothers and reproductive choices Giving birth is a monumental event, not only in the personal life of the woman giving birth, but as a medical process and procedure. In The Business of Birth, Louise Marie Roth explores the process of giving birth, and the ways in which medicine and law interact to shape maternity care. Focusing on the United States, Roth explores how the law creates an environment where medical providers, malpractice attorneys, and others limit women’s rights and choices during birth. She shows how a fear of liability risk often drives the decision-making process of medical providers, who prioritize hospital efficiency over patient safety, to the detriment of mothers themselves. Ultimately, Roth advocates for an approach that protects the reproductive rights of mothers. A comprehensive overview, The Business of Birth provides valuable insight into the impact of the law on mothers, medical providers, maternity care practices, and others in the United States.

"Selected by" Choice" magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title for 1996""[Marsh and Ronner make for] a highly successful combination in which faultless clinical detail and a broad social and cultural approach are seamlessly woven to produce a very impressive and beautifully written historical work of the first importance." -- Irvine Louden, "Journal of the Social History of Medicine"

In "The Empty Cradle," Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner delve into the origins of the many misconceptions surrounding infertility as they explore how medical and cultural beliefs emerged throughout its controversial history. Drawing on a wide variety of sources -- including intimate diaries and letters, patient records, memoirs, medical literature, and popular magazines -- "The Empty Cradle" investigates the social, cultural, scientific, and medical dimensions of infertility over the past three hundred years.

Marsh and Ronner explore reactions -- among both physicians and husbands -- to the emerging scientific evidence that infertility was a condition for which men and women bear equal responsibility. The book concludes that infertility is still a subject affected by myth and misunderstanding. A lively and compelling history of a complex medical and cultural phenomenon, "The Empty Cradle" brings a valuable perspective to current debates about how we should think about and address the experience of infertility in our own time.

"Marsh and Ronner have sought to go beyond the published medical literature to disclose the voices of those most affected by the physiological and cultural condition of infertility... they have restored to the historical record the anguish and the hopes of women whoexperienced infertility." -- Rima D. Apple, "American Historical Review"

"The book's lucid explanations of medical terms and procedures will allow me to recommend it to my infertility patients. I plan to do so, trusting that it will give them a new perspective on their predicament. Knowing that it provided me a new perspective on both infertility and the practice of gynecology, I will also assign it an honored place in my medical library." -- Janet E. Shepherd, M.D., "Journal of the American Medical Association"

" "The Empty Cradle" demonstrates the profound impact of politics as well as culture on the development of medical practice. It is an excellent model for future scholarship on the complex relationship between science and society." -- Elaine Tyler May, "Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences"

This revised and updated second edition provides a comprehensive account of the human male gamete. Detailed overviews of human sperm production, maturation, and function - and how these processes affect and influence fertility, infertility, and assisted reproduction - are given. A wide range of new developments including proteomics, spermatogenesis, sperm-specific WW domain-binding proteins, Ca2+ signalling, DNA packaging, epididymis are explored, whilst a new chapter presents information gained from mouse genetics, highlighting how it informs male fertility research. The impact of environmental factors during pre-pubertal and pubertal stages of life is also investigated. Featuring engaging prose with chapters organized topographically, The Sperm Cell remains an essential resource for andrologists, clinical scientists, and laboratory personnel.