ItemArticle

Sociocultural aspects of the medicalisation of infertility: A comparative reading of two illness narratives

Title
Sociocultural aspects of the medicalisation of infertility: A comparative reading of two illness narratives
Creator
James, Annie; Warrier, Manjusha G; Benny, Ann Treessa
Description
This paper is a comparative reading of variations in the medicalisation of infertility caused by sociocultural aspects, in two illness narratives by patients: Elizabeth Katkin's Conceivability (2018), a story of navigating a fertility industry with polycystic ovarian syndrome and antiphospholipid syndrome in America and Rohini Rajagopal's What's a Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina (2021), a discussion from India of a growing awareness of medicalisation in treatment of unexplained infertility. For this purpose, it first charts scholarship on illness narratives and medicalisation, noting a historical association. Following this, it shows how infertility, a physiological symptom of reproductive incapacity or failure to show clinical pregnancy, is generally medicalised. This paper reads the texts as showing hitherto unaddressed sociocultural aspects of infertility's medicalisation. At the same time, drawing from existing sociological and anthropological scholarship, it shows how a reading of sociocultural aspects in medicalised infertility nuances understanding of it's medicalisation. This comparative reading attends to sociocultural values and norms within the texts, including pronatalism, fetal personhood, kinship organisation, purity/pollution, individual reliance, sacred duty and so forth. It draws from scholarship on embodiment, rhetorical strategies and the language of medicine. It also shows how a patient's non-medicalised, affective history of 'deep' sickness caused by the biographical disruption of infertility is not that of a 'poor historian'. In laying out the particularisation of such sociocultural values and norms across America and India, medicalisation's migration from its origins to the margins reveals subjectivised, stratified reproduction in infertility illness narratives. This paper is part of a turn in scholarship away from understanding the medicalisation of infertility as naturalised and decontextualised. Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ Group.
Source
Medical Humanities;Volume;51;Issue;1;pp.76-85
Date
01-01-2025
Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group
Subject
comparative literature studies; infertility; Medical humanities
Coverage
James A., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India; Warrier M.G., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India; Benny A.T., Department of English and Cultural Studies, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India
Rights
Restricted Access; Hardcopy may be available in the library
Relation
ISSN: 1468215X; CODEN: MHEUB
Format
online
Language
English
Type
Article

Citation

James, Annie; Warrier, Manjusha G; Benny, Ann Treessa, “Sociocultural aspects of the medicalisation of infertility: A comparative reading of two illness narratives,” CHRIST (Deemed To Be University) Institutional Repository, accessed June 19, 2026, https://archives.christuniversity.in/items/show/22999.

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