The fertility clinic controversy at the University of California, Irvine: A case study in the social ramifications of reproductive science

This thesis analyzes the UCI Fertility Clinic scandal in which the eggs and embryos of patients undergoing treatment for infertility were donated without consent to other clinic patients. I attempt to understand the intellectual and social context which created a public spectacle in the aftermath of the scandal. My basic contention is that Southern California is in a period of history when it is creating new moralities in an effort to deal with the explosion of enabling technologies threatening to transform society as we know it. The scandal touched off a veritable powder keg of anxiety about the power of science to alter humanity, and also unveiled a deep and abiding restlessness concerning the future of mankind and our place in the world. My primary focus is to examine the institutions of change and restraint, and how they work either to advance or to impede the evolution of civilization through economic and political means. Crucial to this study are the interviews of important decision-makers and those who construct the artifice of the social imagination.