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1946 results in Family Law

Page 66 of 98

  • Comparative Analysis and Recommendations

  • from PART IV - CONCLUSION
    • By Jens M. Scherpe, University of Cambridge, England, and University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Peter Dunne, Universidad Nacional de Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 615-663

  • Summary

    PURPOSE OF THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

    When comparing and analysing the development of the legal status of transsexual and transgender persons, what is striking is how fraught with – at best – misapprehensions and misunderstandings and – at worst – social rejection and even hatred the debates have been and, in many jurisdictions, still are. Looking back, the history of recognition of the preferred gender of transsexual and transgender persons has been, and remains, a battle against discrimination, stigmatisation, social exclusion, anxiety, pain and suffering, violation of dignity and physical integrity, and sometimes even prosecution and persecution.

    While the legal and social situation of transsexual and transgender persons has improved greatly in many jurisdictions, that certainly is not the case globally. As already said in the introduction, this book therefore aims to make a contribution to the ongoing scholarly and political debates concerning the legal status of transsexual and transgender persons, both inside and outside of potential legislative reform processes. It is also meant to function as a resource for judicial and administrative decisions. One purpose of this final chapter is to compare, categorise and, where possible, explain the legal developments in the jurisdictions covered in this book. This hopefully will enable readers to see where their home jurisdictions stand, and whether the positions taken there are tenable in the light of social developments, current medical and psychological research, and international human rights standards. The other purpose of this final chapter is to identify what the developing trends are. This should allow readers to not only see the stages of development and surrounding discussions – which are surprisingly similar in many, socially diverse jurisdictions – but perhaps also see why some of the points and concerns raised in the discussions are considered to lack sufficient basis in other jurisdictions. This, it is hoped, ideally (and perhaps somewhat over-optimistically) might lead to legislatures and courts avoiding what can be referred to as ‘repeating other people's mistakes’ – in the sense that certain development stages could be ‘leap-frogged’ and a better legal standard of recognition and protection for the persons concerned achieved at the outset. In order to achieve this, the chapter will make recommendations on the criteria for legal recognition of preferred gender which are based on the comparative analysis, as well as general policy and human rights considerations.

  • Ireland

  • from Europe
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 223-248

  • Summary

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    BACKGROUND AND OVERALL LEGAL FRAMEWORK

    At the time of writing, there is no mechanism by which a transgender person can have his or her preferred gender comprehensively recognised in Irish law. The general legal position remains that biological indicators present at the time of birth ‘continue to act as the governance in the determination of sex’. In his 2007 judgment in the High Court case of Foy v An t-Ard Chlaraitheoir, McKechnie J declared that Ireland was in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in the light of the European Court of Human Rights’ judgment in Goodwin v United Kingdom because of the ‘absence of any provision which would enable the acquired identity of [the applicant] to be legally recognised in this jurisdiction’.

    Nevertheless, the Government's Gender Recognition Advisory Group (the ‘GRAG’ or the ‘Group’) did not report until 2011 (following the Government's decision to abandon a surprising attempt to appeal the decision in the Foy case), and the ‘General Scheme’ of a Gender Recognition Bill was finally published only in July 2013. A relevant report of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection was then published in January 2014, recommending a number of changes to the anticipated Bill. Following discussion of the Committee's recommendations by the Cabinet, a Revised General Scheme (containing few major changes) was published in June 2014, and a Bill based on it was published only in December 2014. Indeed, the Minister for Social Protection has admitted that gender recognition was an issue that has been ‘left unaddressed for far too long’. By the time the General Scheme was published, two Private Members’ Bills had been propagated, by Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD and Senator Katherine Zappone respectively. This chapter will focus on the Government Bill (GRB) that became the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) in July 2015 after considerable amendment and debate. It is apparently expected to be commenced by the end of August 2015.

    Ireland has a written constitution. However, in a 2002 judgment relating to earlier proceedings in Foy, McKechnie J rejected the submission that the applicant's inability to have the register of births amended to reflect her preferred female identity violated her constitutional ‘rights of privacy, of dignity, [or] of equality’, or her right to marry, in spite of his recognition that those constitutional rights did exist.

  • Japan

  • from Asia
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 363-390

  • Summary

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    LEGAL RULES FOR TRANSGENDER AND TRANSSEXUAL PERSONS

    Introduction

    Japan has traditionally had a unique transgender subculture, with often mystic bisexual figures in mythology and shamanism. During the period of feudalism, cross-dressing or transcending gender was not unusual, such as in kabuki theatres where female roles generally were played by male actors. Despite modernisation since the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the transgender subculture has in fact endured in kabuki, no, and even in pop culture. Yet, notwithstanding this tradition, institutionalising medical and legal measures for transgender and transsexual persons has been a long process. While the legal recognition of preferred gender has been enabled by the Law Concerning Special Rules Regarding Sex Status of a Person with Gender Identity Disorder (GID Act) of 16 July 2003, coming into force one year later, a series of questions remain with regard to its requirements, procedure and legal effects.

    Pursuant to Article 2 GID Act, ‘gender identity disorder’ (sei doitsusei shogai (GID)) is defined as the state of ‘a person who, against his/her defined biological sex, has the persistent conviction that he/she psychologically belongs to the opposite sex and has a will to make himself/herself into physical and social conformity with the opposite sex; provided that two or more physicians, who have experience and expertise required to properly make such a diagnosis, should make the same diagnosis on the subject concerned based upon generally accepted medical standards’. This legal definition of GID aims to identify those transgender persons who are eligible to request the legal recognition of their preferred gender in the Family Court from a substantive and procedural perspective. The Japanese legislature consciously chose a narrow definition of GID, seeking to avoid catering to an excessively wide scope of applications and to subject the legal gender recognition to a thorough and careful examination.

    The nomenclature of GID has since then been established as legal and medical terminology in Japan, along the lines of F64 of the ICD-10 adopted by the World Health Organization in 1992 (last revised in 2010). In the international arena, however, GID has increasingly been criticised as discriminatory and stigmatising. Hence, following suggestions by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Psychiatric Association has now substituted GID with ‘gender dysphoria’ in its DSM-5 (2013) to ensure clinical care and clarify that gender nonconformity is not, in itself, a mental disorder.

  • Singapore

  • from Asia
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 391-424

  • Summary

    HISTORY

    A watershed in history for transgender persons in Singapore was quietly marked with the publication of a short newspaper article in the 31 July 1971 issue of The Straits Times, the leading English-language newspaper in Singapore. Buried on page 17, and sandwiched between a report about a drop in water usage in water- scarce Singapore and another about the Singapore Youth Orchestra, it recorded that ‘Singapore's first sex change operation was successfully carried out on a 24-year-old man’ on 29 July 1971. The surgery took place at the main obstetrics and gynaecology hospital in Singapore in a three-hour operation carried out by three surgeons from the University of Singapore. Although surgical procedures had previously been carried out on patients affected by an intersex condition, this appears to be the first ‘complete’ gender confirmation surgery procedure to be carried out specifically for the treatment of gender dysphoria in Singapore. The lead surgeon of the team carrying out the surgery later described the operation as the ‘first sex change ever done in Singapore, and for that matter in the region’.

    The operation went well. Within a month, the newspapers followed up with a report that the patient was on the verge of being discharged from hospital – and had ‘marriage plans’. The second gender confirmation surgery was carried out a few months later in November of the same year, also involving a male-to-female (MtF) transgender individual. The patient in this second case appears to have been operated upon just two weeks after being referred to the hospital. She had come to the decision about submitting to gender confirmation surgery after reading the newspaper reports about the first operation. About three years later, the first surgical intervention was performed upon a female-to-male (FtM) transgender individual. It, too, was successful, although the individual had to endure a series of operations as part of the considerably more complex FtM transition process (in contrast to the single-stage procedure carried out for MtF transgender persons) which required among other things the construction of a neophallus through a phalloplasty procedure. It was not until early 1977, some three years after the first surgical procedure, that this individual completed his medical transition.

  • Sweden

  • from Europe
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 281-312

  • Summary

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    OVERVIEW

    In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to enact a national legislative scheme for changes of registered gender and legal gender status. The Gender Classification Act was also the first law of its kind to establish national rules for such changes for children with atypical sex development. On the surface, the current Act appears to be much the same statute today as it was when it came into force. The criteria for changes of registered gender under the current law, as well as the provisions for governance of medical care, are strikingly similar to those in use for the last four decades. In 2012, however, the government began a series of reforms that recently culminated in a sweeping proposal to radically overhaul the Act – not only in its regulatory aims, but at its very conceptual foundations – recognising gender identity as a human right, rather than a medical condition or registered identity that would warrant only strictly controlled changes as a matter of law. Even without these reforms, a comparison of the current Act to the original law underscores subtle, recent changes that resonate with substantive distinctions, influenced by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), the Yogyakarta Principles, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. If the proposed reforms take effect on schedule in 2016, this chapter may quickly become a mere historical chronicle of how one influential nation reconsidered its approach to conferring benefits and imposing hardships on transgender people, with the relative successes and failures of its legal scheme perhaps best measured by those whose lives are most directly affected by it.

    At its inception, the Gender Classification Act integrated changes of registered gender with medical care. In part, this grew out of Sweden's universal health care system, which covers most of the costs of diagnosis and basic treatment associated with gender identity distress (clinically known as dysphoria). As early as 1968, the government recognised that much of this stress arose, in fact, from incorrect legal registrations assigned at birth. Thus, treatment for such stress was also ratified as standard care in the Act, which gives the National Board of Health and Welfare the authority to approve all genital and gonadal surgery connected with any application for a registered gender change, as well as the hospitals where certain procedures take place.

  • Australia

  • from Australia and New Zealand
    • By Rachael Wallbank, Accredited Specialist Family Law Practitioner (LSNSW) and Principal of Wallbanks Legal, Australia
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 457-526

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    In this chapter I have been generously given the freedom to take a somewhat different approach to providing the Australian response to the questionnaire issued by Dr Jens M. Scherpe for this book (the ‘Questionnaire’).

    In the course of my work as a lawyer, social advocate and writer I have been privileged to be introduced to the best of Australian and international expertise concerning the nature and medical treatment of human beings who experience Difference or diversity in sexual formation. In the course of seeking legal and social reform, I have been obliged to confront the challenges of effectively thinking about and communicating, to courts, government and community, an appreciation of the experience of Difference or diversity in gender expression.

    While in sections II, III and IV of this chapter I have sought to provide the information requested in the Questionnaire, I have also sought to deconstruct and critique Australian government policy documents, legislation and case law based upon the factors I identify in section I as being the causes for what I argue is the current chaos of perception and discourse in relation to people who experience Difference or diversity in either the sexual differentiation and development of their bodies or the way they need to express gender in the world. This description includes the groups of people labelled ‘Transsexual’, ‘Transgender’ and ‘Intersex’. In section V, I include my own model legislation for the reassignment of Legal Sex for your discussion and critique.

    I acknowledge the considerable assistance offered to me by the wide range of ideas and perspectives shared at the conference supporting this ambitious project held at the University of Hong Kong on 6 and 7 September 2013. I am also indebted to Craig Andrews and my former client ‘Kevin’ for their mature and subtle insight into the distinct predicament of Affirmed Males, to the Honourable Richard Chisholm for his review of an early draft of this chapter and to the continuing benefit of the wisdom and insight of my legal colleague, mentor and friend, Teresa Anderson.

    As soon as the Questionnaire invites us to think about ‘Transsexual’, ‘Transgender’, ‘Legal Sex’ and ‘Legal Gender’, we are obliged to start thinking about meaning and language.

  • Chapter 5 - Sperm Donors as Assistance to Reproduction for Single Women

  • from PART II - THE LEGAL, ETHICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL POSITIONS OF THE PARTICIPANTS
  • Elena Ignovsk
  • Book:
    Sperm Donation, Single Women and Filiation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    12 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 October 2015, pp 183-224

  • Summary

    The political as opposed to natural constitution of ancient families for some authors is associated with the fiction of patriarchy. This had a meaning of a form of political power that when introduced only referred to the sexual domination of the rule of husbands and fathers in the smallest cell of society. Only afterwards did the fiction of patriarchy take on the broader meaning of class domination, and thus a universal feature of human society. Accordingly, the representatives of this stream associate the father's role in the family as strictly conventional (i.e. imposed by force) and thus the family only as an artificial institution that negotiates the roles of its members, just as society does. In these terms, the patriarchal family is not based on biology or natural ties, but on “legal fiction”. While the mother's biological participation is always certain as the one who physically gives birth to the child, paternity has to be discovered or invented, therefore becoming only human creation. This fiction though, served the political role of keeping the family together. Thus, the “fiction of adoption” and the “reality of kinship” were considered equal as long as the family formation was maintained. By analogy, ancient families are not much different from the contemporary families founded by adoptions or by sperm donations. Again, the role of the father is negotiated – the “legal fiction” of the husband as being present when sperm is donated to couples, and his non-existence when sperm is donated to single women. Despite genetics, lacking social and legal fathers in children's lives could be an experience of single-mother families founded naturally too. Nevertheless, lacking both a genetic and social father is exclusively ascribed to single women – parents by choice. Is fatherhood so unimportant?

    In the comparative literature, there has been much less interest in investigating men as fathers and their experiences in reproductive rights and policies in comparison to women as mothers. Reproduction, family life and child rearing have traditionally been considered to belong to the women's domain. Consequently, males’ reproductive choices, sexuality, child rearing and family identifications have been neglected. As such, the lack of literature that deals with the reproductive experiences of men as begetters, donors or social parents makes the topic a rather ambiguous field for making assumptions or conclusions.

  • Chapter 7 - Establishing Fatherhood through an International Prism

  • from PART III - LEGAL WAYS OF ESTABLISHING FATHERHOOD
  • Elena Ignovsk
  • Book:
    Sperm Donation, Single Women and Filiation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    12 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 October 2015, pp 269-306

  • Summary

    The growing interest in giving children a central position with a legal emphasis on their autonomy and priority of their rights has led to their procedural rights, but also to greater complexity in court proceedings concerning attribution and exercise of parental responsibilities in Europe and in the USA.

    The history of international regulations dealing with the establishment or contestation of a parent–child relationship in Europe can be traced to the activities of the International Commission on Civil Status (ICCS) and its consequential conventions: the Convention Extending the Competence of Authorities Empowered to Receive Declarations Acknowledging Natural Children (Rome, 14 September 1961), the Convention on the Establishment of Maternal Descent of Natural Children (Brussels, 12 September 1962), the Convention on Legitimation by Marriage (Rome, 10 September 1970) and the Convention on the Voluntary Acknowledgement of Children Born Out of Wedlock (Munich, 5 September 1980). The identity status in terms of name and forename, extracts from civil status records concerning (inter alia) the birth of the child, and the international exchange of information relating to it have been regulated in the following conventions and recommendations: the Convention on Changes of Surnames and Forenames (Istanbul, 4 September 1958), the Convention on the Law Applicable to Surnames and Forenames (Munich, 5 September 1980), the Convention on the Recognition of Surnames (Antalya, 16 September 2005), the Convention on the Issue of Certain Extracts from Civil-Status Records for Use Abroad (Paris, 27 September 1956), the Convention on the International Exchange of Information Relating to Civil Status (Istanbul, 4 September 1958) and its Additional Protocol (Patras, 6 September 1989), the Recommendation Relating to the Publicity of Civil-Status Registers and Records (Lisbon, 10 September 1987), the Recommendation Relating to the Harmonisation of Civil-Status Records (Lisbon, 10 September 1987), and the Recommendation on the Harmonisation of Extracts from Civil Status Records (Madrid, 7 September 1990).

    The Commission on European Family Law (CEFL) was established in 2001 comprising approximately 26 distinguished experts in the field of family and comparative law from all European Union Member States and other European countries. The main goal was to launch a pioneering theoretical and practical ground on the path towards harmonising family laws in Europe.

  • Chapter 1 - Terminology

  • from PART I - MAPPING THE TERRAIN FROM AN INTERDISCIPLINARY AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
  • Elena Ignovsk
  • Book:
    Sperm Donation, Single Women and Filiation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    12 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 October 2015, pp 11-32

  • Summary

    For the purposes of discussing the law and ethics of reproduction in the era of medically assisted technologies, it is important to differentiate between the use and interpretation of the terminology in the literature depending on the historical and professional context. It is important for interdisciplinary research to induct harmonised terminology, which will be used in a consistent manner at least for the purposes of the work itself. The ethical and legal debates related to sensitive issues such as life, personal identity, reproduction and family are too abstract for the needs of exact scientific conclusion. Bearing in mind that they cannot be calculated with mathematical formulas, it is useful from the beginning to elaborate some of the different interpretations of the ambiguous terms depending on their context of interpretation. Along these lines, it is important to make a distinction between (1) reproduction, procreation, insemination, fertilisation and conception; (2) wish, desire and need to have a child; (3) rearing, bearing and begetting a child; (4) progenitors/begetters, donors and parents (genetic, biological, social and legal); (5) kinship and family; and (6) “artificial insemination” and sperm donation as Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART).

    The introduction and interpretation of the terminology will be a basic tool for the further discussion. The legal context will be mapped from an international perspective, narrowing it down to the European context and the interpretation of international documents such as the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights. For purposes of comparative overview, the lenses of observation will also look at the national regulations in ten European countries regarding three topics: (1) the right of single women to use ART; (2) the right of the child to know the identity of the donor; and (3) the legal proceedings for establishing fatherhood in relation to children conceived with ART.

    REPRODUCTION, PROCREATION, INSEMINATION, FERTILISATION AND CONCEPTION

    An important change that announced the new era of human cooperation with medical science in the field of what before was considered the exclusivity of nature was introduced when the term “procreation” was replaced with the manufacturing word “reproduction”.

  • Chapter 3 - Overview of the National Regulations in Ten European Countries

  • from PART I - MAPPING THE TERRAIN FROM AN INTERDISCIPLINARY AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
  • Elena Ignovsk
  • Book:
    Sperm Donation, Single Women and Filiation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    12 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 October 2015, pp 81-112

  • Summary

    GENERAL OVERVIEW

    THE RIGHT OF SINGLE WOMEN TO USE ART

    From the information gathered by the International Federation of Fertility Societies Surveillance 2010, single women are allowed access to ART as a principle rule covered by statuses or guidelines in:

  • – EU Member countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Spain and the United Kingdom.

  • – Acceding EU countries: Iceland, Montenegro and Serbia.

  • – Other countries in the world: Canada, Israel, Russia, South Africa, USA, Belarus, Ghana, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Ukraine and Venezuela.

    • Single women have access to ART even though it is regulated neither by statutes nor by guidelines in: the Dominican Republic, Israel, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda and Uruguay.

    A rather political value was given to the issue of single women's access to ART in Slovenia where it was decided by referendum on 17 June 2001. After long debates, Slovenians decided that single women should not have access to ART with 72.36% of voters opposing and only 26.38% supporting it.

    From the European countries analysed below, single women cannot exercise their reproductive right by sperm donation in Italy, France, Germany and Sweden. They can apply for sperm donation and eventually conceive a child only under particular circumstances in the Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Croatia and Republic of Serbia. Single women are allowed access to ART without particular conditions and on equal grounds to everybody in the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

    THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD TO KNOW THE IDENTITY OF THE DONOR

    Identifying information regarding the donor can be revealed (regulated by statutes or guidelines) in:

  • – EU Member countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom.

  • – Acceding EU countries: Montenegro.

  • – Other countries in the world: Brazil, Australia, Hong Kong, Argentina, New Zealand, the USA and Vietnam.

    • According to the Steering Committee of Bioethics, identifying the donor, initiated by the child, is also possible in Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Norway, Spain, Iceland, Georgia, Switzerland and Canada. Identifying information can also be available for the court only in Latvia, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Israel.

    Identifying information regarding the donor can be revealed (even though regulation does not exist in statutes and/or guidelines) in Cameroon, Columbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Jamaica, Peru, Togo and Uruguay.

Sperm Donation, Single Women and Filiation
  • Elena Ignovsk
  • Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    12 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 October 2015
  • Although recent family law debates have been predominantly paedo-centric, the founding of "bio-medically assisted families" still focuses on the individual parents' rights to reproduce. By introducing donations, the donor's genetic contribution becomes instrumental and the legal attribution of parenthood negotiated through expressed intentions. The absence of a genetic, social and legal father can only occur in single women's conceptions by choice, hence calling into question the role of the societal father.This neglects the future child's voice in private and family life issues on at least two levels: informational (lacking information about origins, often related to personal identity) and legal and functional (care provided by both parents). It furthermore emphasises the inconsistency in the treatment of "naturally" and "artificially" conceived children since the latter have restricted access to parental judicial proceedings.The conflicts between individuals in the family go beyond national family laws and become a matter of reconciling progenitors' and children's human rights. Yet the discrepancies between different civil law jurisdictions are remarkable. In addition, the sensitivity of the filiation of children conceived by sperm donation to single women requires more than legal solutions - it requires an interdisciplinary approach encompassing ethics, psychology, anthropology and sociology. Moreover, by arguing and suggesting solutions the issue also becomes political. Hence, this book provokes the curious minds of lawyers, ethicists, physicians, bio-technologists and those assisting and wishing to found families. It clarifies concepts, studies the rationale behind the legal complexity in ten national European jurisdictions, and confronts the rights and responsibilities of the stakeholders, providing a balanced independent conclusion and suggestions towards international harmonisation.

  • Chapter 8 - Applying the Results of the Analysis in the Case of the Republic of Macedonia

  • from PART III - LEGAL WAYS OF ESTABLISHING FATHERHOOD
  • Elena Ignovsk
  • Book:
    Sperm Donation, Single Women and Filiation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    12 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 October 2015, pp 307-346

  • Summary

    MAPPING THE TERRAIN FOR THE DISCUSSION

    The lenses for the perception of reproduction in the Western and Eastern European countries are different. While in general the Western countries consider the project of having children as a matter of personal choice made by individuals or couples, in the Eastern countries, reproduction can also be perceived as a social obligation, providing continuity on a small scale of the family name, and on a large scale of the nation. Therefore, in the Eastern European countries parenthood has deeper social roots that go along with more severe consequences of involuntary childlessness. A pronatalist society usually has the justification for such policy in the wider nation-state ideology, instead of individual well-being and self-fulfilment. This is consistent with Foucault's premises that reproductive sexuality has turned into a domain of collective anxiety and state intervention due to the fact that the future of our species and our nation depends on it. The policy of prioritising the greater public good over the individual is covered by linking a person's social and moral worth to reproduction.

    On a general level, the perception is that sperm and oocyte donation are more easily available in the Eastern European than in the Western European countries. This perception makes the Eastern European countries be considered favourable destinations for those seeking cross-border reproductive treatments. Some studies have recorded large numbers of patients from Austria, Italy, Germany and the UK travelling to more recently joined European Union Member States such as Czech Republic and Slovenia (2004) to seek medical care. The reasons are associated with favourable legislative environment, accompanied with implemented EU Directives for quality and safety, as well as the lower prices for medical care. Another reason for putting Eastern European countries on the map for cross-border reproductive tourism for these authors is the firmly accepted anonymity of the donors (five countries allowing non-identifying information, while only three countries allow identifying information of the donors). For some other authors, the most common reasons for travelling for reproductive purposes is law evasion when the technique is either forbidden per se or when a particular group is excluded from treatment. There may also be some other access limitations, such as long waiting lists, poor quality or expensive treatments.

  • Chapter 4 - Assisting Single Women to Found Families

  • from PART II - THE LEGAL, ETHICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL POSITIONS OF THE PARTICIPANTS
  • Elena Ignovsk
  • Book:
    Sperm Donation, Single Women and Filiation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    12 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 October 2015, pp 115-182

  • Summary

    An international study in 16 countries has demonstrated that the majority of adults consider reproducing and rearing a child in the family to be necessary for their personal development. A study in the United States found that more than 90% of women either have children or expect to have them in the future, while only 6% of women are voluntarily childless. This shows an attitude that continuing the genes or a dream for a family with children is the prevailing choice for most people.

    One of the most prominent feminists, Simone de Beauvoir, criticised the oppressiveness of normative femininity as subordinate to reproduction and motherhood as if it is the utmost desire in the women's domain. She argued that women's reproductive bodies are a reason for their subordinate social status, while describing the strong emotional link between mother and child as “mutual and harmful oppression”. Thus, reproduction and its role in women's lives have led to disagreements among feminists regarding reproductive freedom and its interpretation – negative, as not to procreate, or positive, as to have children when wanted. Striving for liberation, feminists’ focus was set for a long time on the negative right promoting birth control, abortion and collective methods of childbearing. With the reproductive technologies revolution, feminists’ politics changed. The new liberation took place on several levels. Firstly, the biological age limits were extended (allowing women professional opportunities). Secondly, changing women's reproductive nature with the artificiality of reproduction relieved the social reproductive pressure and silenced the voices that claimed that women's intrinsic nature is above all to be a mother. Nevertheless, what is similar to the current battle for individual positive reproductive rights is the struggle to separate between public and private spheres, as expressed in the feminist's second-wave slogan: “the personal is political”. As this wave aimed at minimising the gender differences, thus lobbying for gender-neutrality, the more recent trends aim at celebrating female differences, among others the ability to give birth to a child, thus claiming the moral superiority of women. Moreover, treating women and men equally is a ground for injustice, bearing in mind their natural inequalities.

Page 66 of 98