Title: Constructing families and kinship through donor insemination
نویسنده
چکیده
This paper presents some central findings of an exploratory qualitative study of New Zealand families with children conceived by donor insemination (DI). Drawing on social anthropological and sociological theorising about kinship and contemporary Western families, the paper explores the ways in which parents and their kin actively construct parent-child relationships and kin connections through the notions of biological and social ties, nature and nurture. The paper discusses three major themes emerging from the data: the social construction of the ‘natural facts’ of procreation, physical resemblance, and the construction of families through choice, not biology. Whilst the primacy of biological or genetic connection is a powerful cultural theme, particularly evident in the ambiguities and uncertainties for social fathers and their kin, these families also deconstruct this notion. Drawing simultaneously on the power of social and biological connection, using biology as a metaphor for social relations, or by privileging social ties and the formation of families through choice, over time these families strategically establish themselves as the sole parents and kin of their children conceived by D
منابع مشابه
The Lineage of Children Born by Sperm Donation: A Shiite Perspective
Background: Despite the meager role of the masculine agent in infertility (the low number of infertile men than women infertile), there are men whose wives are unable to become pregnant due to the absence of sperm, decreased numbers of sperm or lack of sufficient motile sperm. Utilizing donated sperm is a method that enables these families to have children. The use of this method prompts us to ...
متن کاملParent psychological adjustment, donor conception and disclosure: a follow-up over 10 years.
STUDY QUESTION What is the relationship between parent psychological adjustment, type of gamete donation (donor insemination, egg donation) and parents' disclosure of their use of donated gametes to their children. SUMMARY ANSWER Disclosure of donor origins to the child was not always associated with optimal levels of psychological adjustment, especially for fathers in donor insemination fami...
متن کاملFemale-partnered and single women's contact motivations and experiences with donor-linked families.
STUDY QUESTION What are female-partnered and single mothers' motivations and experiences at one donor insemination (DI) program with regard to contacting other families who share the same sperm donor? SUMMARY ANSWER By and large, women reported seeking contact to obtain (i) support for their children and/or themselves, and (ii) information about shared traits and medical problems, ultimately ...
متن کاملHelping parents to tell their children about the use of donor insemination (DI) and determining their opinions about open-identity sperm donors.
OBJECTIVE To look at the level of compliance with Swedish law whether or not parents intend to tell their child about donor insemination. We also wanted to look at the parents' attitudes towards open-identity sperm donors and at relationships within the family. METHOD All parents who were treated and gave birth to a child through donor insemination from 1997 to 2003 were included in the study...
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BACKGROUND Studies of parental decision making regarding information sharing with offspring conceived as a result of donor insemination are almost all based on a 'one point in time' design. This study reports on parental decision making at two points in time, Time 1 and Time 2, 14 years apart. METHODS Forty-four of 57 families (77%) who had agreed to take part in a follow-up study were interv...
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