Presenter: John M. O'Neill

Faculty Sponsor: Angela Bateman

School: Cape Cod Community College

Research Area: Sociology and Anthropology

Session: Poster Session 2, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM, Auditorium, A75

ABSTRACT

This research investigates genetic selection technologies and their emergence as a site of stratified reproduction within contemporary healthcare systems. It argues that the current innovations in reproductive healthcare, particularly technologies that allow for the selection of embryos during assisted reproduction, operate within a market-based healthcare system structured to turn genetic health into a commodified resource for those at a socio-economic advantage. Rather than functioning as universally accessible advancements in medicine, these technologies risk creating new forms of biological advancement among existing classes, ethnicities, and genders. Through sociological theories of intersectionality and racial capitalism, this study examines how unequal access to reproductive biotechnology reinforces and deepens the divide in class rather than get rid of disease in an equitable way. It reveals how such innovations are embedded within a system driven by profit from pharmaceutical markets and privatized insurance, which restrict access on a systemic level. Intersectionality shows how race, gender, and class intersect to shape different outcomes of genetic disease and unequal access to emerging gene-editing treatments, while racial capitalism explains how the biotechnology markets profit from innovation in ways to reproduce the longstanding racial and class inequalities. Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study analyzes sociological literature on structural inequality and reproductive governance as well as economic data on healthcare costs, biotech investment, and insurance disparities. The findings suggest that without structural policy reform, genetic selection technologies risk intensifying health stratification and institutionalizing inequality at a biological level.