Gender and reproduction after the reform of the Biotechnology Act

DOI: 10.18261/issn.1891-1781

Abstracts

Egg donation from prohibition to service: The biopolitical configuration of a new form of reproductive assistance

By Ingvill Stuvøy

In the Spring of 2020, the Norwegian Parliament voted “yes” to egg donation, after years of debate and political tug of war. But what exactly did the politicians say yes to? And what has it become? In this article I follow egg donation on its way from prohibition to a provided service. I examine the characteristics of the way egg donation is introduced in Norway through an analysis of the politicians’ enactment and the bureaucratic operationalization of the law into concrete guidelines. My interest in the article is what I refer to as a biopolitical configuration of what in a Norwegian context is a new form of assisted reproduction. In the analysis I find that the configuration of egg donation is modelled after sperm donation, yet the result is not the same. This mirrors practical characteristics of egg and sperm donation, as well as cultural imaginations regarding gender, sex cells and parenthood. Furthermore, I find that the egg donor is configured as an assistant for others’ reproduction, unknown to and on the outside of the assisted family, which is modeled after a traditional ideal of the family. The biopolitical configuration of egg donation thereby gives little opening for new and other kinship and family relations.

Keywords: egg donation, assisted reproduction,the biotechnology act, third-party reproduction,biopolitics

“The birth control pill of our generation?” Social egg freezing among women in Norway

By Kristin Engh Førde

With an informant’s description of freezing one’s own unfertilized eggs as “the birth control pill of our generation” as a point of departure, this article discusses to what extent and in what ways women from the millennial generation in a Nordic welfare state perceive such freezing as liberating and enhancing gender equality. The discussion is based on the first empirical study of women’s use of social egg freezing in the Nordic countries. I followed 22 women who, in the years before and after the biotechnology reform, froze their eggs or considered doing so. The women were generally aware that egg freezing has a very uncertain effect on fertility, yet they described it as a way to take control over circumstances destabilized by acute or future declining fertility. This particularly applied to the experience of feeling “desperate” and vulnerable when meeting potential partners. Where love and relationships were perceived as difficult or impossible to control directly, egg freezing was available to the women as relatively wealthy consumers. Although several criticized the fertility industry, the women felt that egg freezing could restore the balance of power vis-à-vis men, and create increased freedom and control in their own lives. Towards the end of the article, I discuss what the women’s experiences can potentially tell us about expectations and understandings of liberation, equality, and feminism, and about possible “blind spots” in the thinking around these issues in the Nordic context.

Keywords: Biotechnology Act,social egg freezing, reproductive Technology, fertility, women, gender, feminism, gender equality, Nordic welfare states

Negotations of gender, body and kinship: trans men’s use of assisted reproductive technologies

By Lærke Munk Rigtrup-Lindemann

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have offered new possibilities for trans men to reproduce and create biogenetic ties to their future children. In Norway, assisted reproduction is regulated by the Biotechnology Act. Trans men’s access to ARTs is limited due to the way the Act is written. In addition, the Act on Changing Legal Gender from 2016 forms the basis for how gender is interpreted in other laws and regulations. The Biotechnology Act should therefore be understood in relation to this. The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between the Biotechnology Act and ARTs, and what impact it has on trans men’s understandings and practices of gender, body and kinship. The empirical material analysed in this study consists of four interviews with four trans people living in Norway, all of whom have legal status as male. They have received, or in a single case considered receiving treatment, with ARTs in other Nordic countries than Norway. The empirical material is presented in the form of three cases, which reflect the ARTs which the informants have experience with, or considerations about. The cases concern fertility preservation, partner donation, and gestation with in vitro fertilization (IVF) and donated eggs. The interviews were analysed and discussed using kinship grammars as a theoretical framework. The analysis suggests that the informants’ reproductive choices were shaped by what was possible and available to them. The possibilities and limitations created by the legal and reproductive technological framework were also important for their negotiations of kinship, gender and body.

Keywords: The Norwegian biotechnology act, assisted reproductive Technologies, trans men, trans pregnancy, fertility preservation, kinship, kinship grammars

The old, the new and the united abortion debate in Norway

By Berge Solberg

The Abortion Act and the Biotechnology Act are two different laws that both relate to family planning and reproduction. Despite the strong connection between the two, they have been politically debated separately, seemingly with a water-tight seal between the two. In recent Norwegian history, the Biotechnology Act has been associated with what has been called ‘the new abortion debate,’ while the ‘old abortion debate’ is linked to the Abortion Act. In this article, I describe some of the differences in perspectives. Furthermore, I argue that events in the 2020s, from the Biotechnology Agreement to the Abortion Committee to women’s experiential exchange in the public sphere, pointed toward a third framing of the abortion issue – ‘the united abortion debate’ – which currently represents the richest framing of this question. How abortion is debated at any given time, and what types of questions, answers, and critical perspectives resonate in the public sphere, form an intersubjective background for personal opinions about abortion. Perhaps abortion is less of a subjective value standpoint than one might think. Therefore, it may be important to be aware of the different framings of the abortion debate and their inherent normative power.

Keywords: abortion, ethics, reproduction, prenatal diagnosis, abortion act, biotechnology act

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