Delegation of parenthood and language of reproduction: experts and patients on the birth of ART-children

Abstract

While understanding their positions on various ethical issues in the field of reproductive technologies, IVF patients form their own special language, not scientific, but rather vernacular, based on real experience. A group of women actively seeking procreation with modern biotechnologies remains somewhat conservative, focused on a traditional family. New concepts and terminology are particularly well-formed in their disputes over the use of reproductive donation. In general, what they articulate and advocate is consistent with concepts of bioethics that are also controversial – for some, the priority of genetic connectivity is unusually strong, while others deny its significance. The study bases on examining perceptions of reproductive donation by bioethics specialists presented in the literature and their comparison with the views of ART patients communicating on the Internet. The author uses qualitative discourse analysis and studies thematic discussions on the Probirka.ru website, which are devoted to the preferences of their participants in relation to reproductive donation, its acceptance or rejection. The study shows that patients’ positions are somewhat more extreme than the views of bioethics. For example, some participants practically deny the existence of genes, while others talk about the advantage of finding a child without using one’s own body. The author reveals different groups of patients, and more traditionally oriented women prefer to delegate the genetic part of parenthood to third parties and cannot refuse to bear pregnancy as they see it as a central part of female identity, while more modernized prefer to keep genetic connection if it is possible to refuse childbearing.