Man, woman, couple: facing the challenges of medically assisted procreation

Journal title SALUTE E SOCIETÀ
Author/s Paola Di Nicola, Cristina Lonardi, Debora Viviani
Publishing Year 2019 Issue 2019/1
Language English Pages 18 P. 82-99 File size 249 KB
DOI 10.3280/SES2019-001006
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The wider use of medically assisted procreation techniques has led to the spread of a new social imaginary of procreation, filiation and parenthood that involves the identities of men, women and couples. In this new social imaginary, filiation is split into its different genetic, biological and social components, while reproduction is separated from sexuality and indeed the sexual act, bringing into play new figures of men, women and couples who overcome all the biological, genetic and in some cases natural issues related to reproduction. These individuals are willing to accept that there is room for more subjects and social actors (more fathers, mothers and parents) in the field of procreation. This article aims to highlight how both sexes are preparing for this new transition, presenting the results of an empirical study conducted with a quota sample of 360 Italian men and women.

Keywords: Medically assisted procreation; male identity; female identity; couple; filiation; social imaginary.

  1. Andolfi M. (a cura di) (2012). Il padre ritrovato. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  2. Anleu S. R. (1992). Surrogacy: for love but not money? Gender & Society, 6: 30-48.
  3. Bailey A. (2011). Reconceiving Surrogacy: Toward a Reproductive Justice Account of Indian Surrogacy. Hypatia, 4: 715-741.
  4. Bauman Z. (2003). Liquid Love. On the Frailty of Human Bonds. Oxford: Cambridge. (Italian translation 2008, Amore liquido, Bari-Roma: Laterza).
  5. Beck U. (1986). Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (Italian translation 2000, La società del rischio. Verso una seconda modernità, Roma: Carocci).
  6. Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (1990). Das ganz normale Chaos del Liebe. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (Italian translation 1996, Il normale caos dell’amore. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri).
  7. Berend Z. (2012). The Romance of Surrogacy. Sociological Forum, 27(4): 913-936.
  8. Zenk F., Loeser E., Schiavo R., Kilpert F., Bogdanovic F., Iovino N. (2017).Germ line–inherited H3K27me3 restricts enhancer function during maternal-to-zygotic transition. Science, 357(6347): 212-21.
  9. Wilkinson S. (2016). Exploitation in International Paid Surrogacy Arrangements. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 33(2): 125-145.
  10. Viviani D. (2017). It is not mine. Surrogacy: between Natural Body and Artificial Body. Italian Sociological Review, 7(3): 369-38
  11. Teman E. (2010) Birthing a mother: The surrogate body and the pregnant self. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  12. Teman E. (2008). The social construction of surrogacy research: An anthropological critique of the psychosocial scholarship on surrogate motherhood. Social Science & Medicine, 67: 1104-1112.
  13. Teman E. (2003). The medicalization of ‘‘nature’’ in the ‘‘artificial body’’: Surrogate motherhood in Israel. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 17(1): 78–98.
  14. Taylor C. (2005),.Gli immaginari sociali moderni. Roma: Meltemi.
  15. Shenfiel F., de Mouzon J., Pennings G., Ferraretti A.P., Nyobe Andersen A., de Wert G., Goosens V. (2010). Cross-border reproductive care in six European countries. Human Reproduction, 25(6): 1361-1368.
  16. Shalev C. (1998). Nascere per contratto. Milano: Giuffrè Editore (Original edition Birth Power. The case for surrogacy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press).
  17. Rudrappa S. (2017). Reproducing Dystopia: The Politics of Transnational Surrogacy in India 2002-2015. Critical Sociology, 44(7–8): 1087–1101. DOI: 10.1177/089692051774061
  18. Rudrappa S. (2015). Discounted Life. The Price of Glogal Surrogacy in India. New York: University Press.
  19. Rossi G. (2003). Temi emergenti di sociologia della famiglia. Milano: Vita & Pensiero.
  20. Ronfani P. (2015). Le responsabilità genitoriale. Il diritto, la cultura giuridica e i saperi esperti. In R. Bosisio, P. Ronfani, a cura di, Le famiglie omogenitoriali. Roma: Carocci.
  21. Prasad A. (2014). Storia naturale del concepimento. Come la scienza può cambiare le regole del sesso. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri (Original edition 2012, Like a Virgin: how science is redesigning the rules of sex, UK: Oneworld Publications).
  22. Pande A. (2014). Wombs Labour: Transational Commerce Surrogacy in India. Berkeley: Columbia University Press.
  23. Muraro L. (2016), L’anima del corpo. Contro l’utero in affitto. Milano: Editrice La Scuola.
  24. Marzano M. (2015). Etica oggi. Fecondazione eterologa, «guerra giusta», nuova morale sessuale e altre grandi questioni contemporanee. Trento: Erickson.
  25. Iagulli P. (2013), Diritti riproduttivi e fecondazione artificiale. Studio di sociologia dei diritti umani. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  26. Golombok S. (2016). Famiglie moderne. Genitori e figli nelle nuove forme di famiglia, Milano: Edra.
  27. Giddens A. (1992), The Transformation of Intimacy, Cambridge: Polity Press. (Italian translation 1995, La trasformazione dell’intimità: sessualità, amore ed erotisomo nelle società moderne, Bologna: il Mulino).
  28. Galeotti G. (2011). In cerca del padre. Storia dell’identità paterna in età contemporanea. Bari-Roma: Laterza.
  29. Di Nicola P. (2017). Famiglia.: sostantivo plurale. Nuovi orizzonti e vecchi problemi. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  30. Deonandan R, Green S, van Beinum A. (2012). Ethical concerns for maternal surrogacy and reproductive tourism. Journal of Medical Ethics, 38: 742 –745.
  31. Bertocchi F., Guizzardi L. (a cura di) (2017). We are Family. Same-Sex Families in the Italian Context. Italian Sociological Review, 7(3):

Paola Di Nicola, Cristina Lonardi, Debora Viviani, Man, woman, couple: facing the challenges of medically assisted procreation in "SALUTE E SOCIETÀ" 1/2019, pp 82-99, DOI: 10.3280/SES2019-001006