The Limits of Artificial Reproduction and Surrogacy

When the world’s first ‘test-tube’ baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1978, it was heralded as the dawn of a new era for infertile couples. By using donated eggs, sperm and/or surrogates, they could at last become parents.But the new era has not been such a simple matter...

Raising the Odds of Conception

“Better have your baby before you’re 37” is advice that Professor Kui Liu of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology likes to give his students in a light-hearted manner. The line draws a laugh but everyone in the room knows that this statement is no joke.A...

Birthing in Hong Kong

The more things change, the more they remain the same, as Dr Carol Tsang of the Department of History has discovered. Her area of research is women’s health and reproduction in Hong Kong and China, and her female students and acquaintances keep reminding her that...

The Labour of Giving Birth

It’s not called labour without reason. The effort of pregnancy and giving birth, and then raising children, has been termed ‘reproductive labour’ by social scientists like Dr Gonçalo Santos of the Department of Sociology and Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and...