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DOI: 10.20529/IJME.2018.032 Manuscript Editor: Rakhi Ghoshal © Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2018 Abstract The routinisation of assisted reproduction in India has led to its proliferation and the easy identification of infertility. However, clinical and popular discourse tends to focus primarily on age-related deficiencies in reproduction. Here, both the “dangers” of declining reproduction as well as the facilitation of delayed reproduction are areas of focus and eulogisation. Bringing together the diverse elements of the medico-social conversation, the aim of this commentary is to examine the ways in which the ARTs are used to make sense of declining reproduction. Background In its representation in academic literature and in life, ageing is seen as a state of decline and debilitation. Its physical markers are associated with regression and a slowing down of the “normal” body. In the process, more often than not, ageing has conceptually also been compared to a pathological, diseased state of being. This is especially so in relation to women’s bodies, where the idea of ageing within biomedicine is associated with progressive reproductive decline (1,2). This conceptualisation of ageing and its association with reproduction is the most provocative in contemporary medical practice and ideology. In this commentary, I discuss how ageing and aged bodies become signifiers of failed and resurrected reproduction. This is particularly evident in the case of assisted reproduction through the use of technologies such as in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and/or intracystoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), besides other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) that are becoming popular in the “curing of infertility” as an emerging health problem. The paradoxical position that ARTs occupy within the socio-medical discourse on infertility is seen in the ways in which the failure of the technology to “cure” is often projected on to issues of age (3), just as the technology promises to alleviate the obstacles of age in seeking infertility treatment. However, the recent public fear of the ticking “biological clock” , especially with regard to working women in their 30s with no children - and the associated fanfare surrounding the birth of children to 70-year-old women through IVF (4) - has led to questions regarding how infertility and ARTs are marking ageing and reproduction in India.