"Half-Related"? Problematisation of Kinship and Family in Print Media Discussing Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Abstract

The fact that modern reproductive technologies allow a range of artificial births, from ART to IVF and surrogate mothers, has brought new fears and uncertainties regarding the moral and social acceptability and desirability of such practices in comparison to the traditional, genetic parent model. The unexpected social consequences of these changes in reproductive practice present a serious challenge to sociologists as they open up a host of thorny questions. This article analyses the key concepts of kinship and parenthood that have been derived from the application of assisted reproductive technologies and its varied methods of normalization. It also attempts to discover a new model for the family based on "assisted" kinship, which can be found in media discourse. The article is based on data extracted from a discourse analysis of articles in two national newspapers over the period of 1996-2010. This is supplemented by interviews with ordinary citizens who have experience with reproductive technologies. The results reveal a multiplicity of concepts of motherhood and fatherhood have formed as a result of the use of these various kinds of biotechnologies. The article demonstrates how the role of donors and surrogates in kinship system is eliminated by means of discursive strategies. Such new modes of parenthood (biogenetic or legal) can be adapted in ways that allow newborn children to relate to their ‘social parents’ in meaningful ways. This entails the breakup of old parental concepts of the traditional mother and father into entities such as ‘bio-father’, ‘bio-mother’, ‘social father’ and ‘genetic parents’. This can also be seen as the enrichment of modern language with new terms. The author points out that Russian biomedicine has not yet become an area of publicly legitimate and legally acknowledged form of family roles and kinship ties. Instead, a conservative climate in Russia has slowed the acceptance of these new trends, with continued preference for the normative concept of nuclear family. This entails seeing parenthood as made up of the genetic bond of at least one of the parents to the child and is reproduced in many conservative institutions in Russia.