Gender and New Reproductive Technologies Slovenia.

Abstract

The main topic of this paper is the availability of assisted fertilization technologies (AI, IVF etc.) in Slovenia. The paper focuses on the rule of law, which permits the use of these technologies only for women from heterosexual couples, which means that it discriminates against all other women, who do not have the right to use the technologies under the law (single heterosexual women, disabled women and homosexual women). This paper discusses the emergence of single women as a gender with specific properties, which would “justify” the legal limitations of access to artificial insemination. The gender of single women is a construct of political and public discourse, constructed by the Slovenian media in the time before the referendum on the bio-medically assisted procreation, when the law on infertility treatment and bio-medically assisted procreation procedures and the amendments to this law were being shaped. This paper also analyses gender roles, talking about women mothers, patriarchal political authorities and society, the right of choice, and the body as a field of political discourse. Finally, it includes critical analysis of political and public discourse.