The title of this symposium volume of Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online, ‘Reprotech in France and the United States: differences and similarities’, is decep- tively modest. At their best, comparative studies do far more than highlight what is the same and what is different between two or more foci. They also yield clues as to what is important in general to each of the times and places being compared (France and USA today), and what is important in general to the phenomenon that is being compared [current trends in human assisted reproductive technology (ART)]. Comparative studies lead us to this sense of ‘in general’ via empirical and archival specifics, by painstakingly researching what happens – and just as importantly, what does not happen – in one place rather than another, and what is contested and what is taken for granted in each case. Comparisons are particularly productive when the places being compared have strong similarities and yet dif- fer in characteristic ways. It is difficult to see these things from ‘inside’ a single perspective.
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