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That is to say that the mother
is certain through birth …and the paternity must be proved by marriage (what
would not be contemplating the children born from adulterous relationships).
Therefore, the father is uncertain.
1. Reproduction Assisted techniques
¿Where do kids come
from? Since the theories omitting the biological aspect such as the stork,
Paris or the cabbage weakened, answering that question started to become
easier for parents. However, these days it has turned again into a
difficult question to answer. Kids can come either from the sexual union
of mum and dad or their non-sexual union, meaning for example their ovules
and spermatozoids joined in an In vitro fecundation, or else the mother
and a semen donor, the father and an ovule donor, two donors and the
mother’s womb, two donors and a third woman who lent us her uterus…
The techniques are:
IVF.
In Vitro Fecundation
Who is the mother?
The mother is not certain anymore. The woman whose womb nests the baby and gives birth is called expectant, uterine, gynecological or carrier mother. The woman, from which the later fecundated ovule was obtained, is called genetic or biological mother. We can also add a social mother, for example in the case of adoption. However, all these names don’t reflect the desire for a child. I wonder: where that desire is? Who has it? Whose wish is satisfied? Who makes it real?
Different kinds of subrogated maternities The subrogated mother can go ahead with the pregnancy of the in vitro fecundated embryo with the ovule and spermatozoid of the couple who hired her.
The woman is inseminated with the sperm of the man whose wife is sterile (out of wedlock procreation of a legitimately-recognized child has always existed without the intervention of science in people’s private lives)
In the third case, we can find the biological mother (ovule donor), the expectant mother (gives birth) and the social one (who adopts or brings up)…so…who is the mother? 2.
So as the insemination consent doesn’t make the man be a father, the gestation contract doesn’t express the expectant woman’s desire to have a child.
In France renting a uterus is prohibited because, among other reasons, it cannot be promoted that a mother abandons her baby after birth. At the same time, it encourages and allows the “birth in X” which is the agreement through which the mother can put her child up for adoption after birth without being registered at the hospital. This law, purely social, opens a different possibility other than abortion for those pregnant women who don’t want to be mothers and also attempts to avoid babies´abandonment, making it at the same time possible.
In Great Britain using another woman’s uterus is accepted only if the later giving of the baby is voluntary and without profits.
In the United States this practice is authorized, and there are agencies in charge of making the contact between the woman and the requesting couple.
Science has broken the typical parental bonds when moving forward. There are mothers who carry pregnancies of their sterile or non uterus daughters, sisters who donate their ovules among themselves, etc. This is the diversity we can find nowadays with the help of science and professionals thirsty for victories. I think that, leaving aside the improper judgment about the apparent monstrosity this represents, our position as health professionals should plead for the analysis of each case in particular to get into subjectivity. Furthermore, we must promote the use of other energetic medicines such as acupuncture and homeopathy to get, in a more natural and respectful way with the body, a better ovulation and spermatic quality as well as the different emotional states a person goes through such as fears, anxieties, etc. I’m especially interested in highlighting the major role emotional aspects play, in spite of the scarce or null importance science and the professionals in charge of carrying out Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) give them, impelled, among others, by strong economical interests.
I find myself facing this topic with the possibility of looking at it from the different elements or characters involved: the science, the couple, the woman and her body, the donors and the boy or girl resulting from these techniques…knowing that each of them is a whole topic itself.
From the psychological point of view it is known that listening is fundamental. When the patient comes feeling emotionally uneasy, we should try to decipher those symptoms and put them into words so they can show the significance they embrace. When the gynecological exploration and its complementary studies show a feminine organism capable of experiencing the biological process of maternity but that doesn’t actually happen, being able to listen becomes essential to start drawing some sort of hypothesis. And I say hypothesis because we don’t know beforehand what is really happening to that woman for not being able to get pregnant, The difficulty in getting pregnant by natural means has a significant value related to the woman’s unconscious; it cannot be known at first what it means for the patient.
We every time more see in our consultation patients who have put off pregnancy for professional, academic or other reasons, among which I include the esthetical progresses which mislead the image. From adolescence until the first alarm coming from the biological clock (35 years approximately), the wish to have a child is not clearly accepted nor rejected in many cases. Then, a conditioning social factor appears “it’s time to become a mother”. At this point, beyond accepting or not this statement, we should ask why? What is expected from maternity? Why to be a mother?
Deciphering those questions may lead us to help the patient make conscious what is happening to her: for instance the desire for a child to strengthen her identity…or to save a couple…or to establish her femininity…or to what she believes will make her feel “complete”, etc. Knowing and understanding this desire will help her re-elect what she wants. Otherwise, this burden will be carried by the procreated child.
According to psychoanalysis the wish to be a mother goes beyond the biological fact. The psychical apparatus is dual: it is composed by a conscious and an unconscious part. Getting pregnant without having the desire as well as not getting it when wanting, are situations which may be expressing the ambivalence between the conscious and the unconscious wish[1].
When there is sterility without apparent reasons, medicine sets multiple studies and stressing explorations for the one undergoing them. It doesn’t suggest or respect the possibility of a concomitant space with the medical request useful to be able to listen and clear out the confusion frequently heard between the social demand of becoming a mother (“having the age”, “it is the couple’s desire”) and the wish to have a child. When the fact of becoming a mother turns into a femininity test, it is possible to understand why, when the objective is not achieved, the woman is capable of offering her own body to any kind of medical manipulations as well as having a great difficulty to symbolize maternity[2].
And what is to symbolize maternity?
It is to develop the imaginary
with visions, representations, ideas, words, etc which foresee the action.
Medical discourse and psychological listening
Nowadays science offers the possibility of certainly
applying on the real body what was short ago situated in the imaginary and
symbolical field. Science and technology make omnipotent fantasies, which
have always fed mythology and literature, come true, such as procreation
without sexual contact (among others the Immaculate Conception).
It is essentially required that the psychotherapeutic and follow-up job would be carried out by professionals guided by an independent ethic without connections of any type with the institution in charge of the Assisted Reproduction Techniques.
Not everything possible to be done
should or must be done. People’s psychic resistance shouldn’t take place.
Age of the
couple
The child A child exists as such before birth as long as he is desired by his parents. The symbolic element gives him a place in the world since he is given a name, is included in the history which precedes him and is attributed a place in his parent’s discourse. There from it is deduced that a person cannot be only limited to biology nor can the desired child be limited to the fecundated gametes. Childhood curiosity is essential for the cognitive and emotional development of a child and it is based on his desire to know where he comes from, how children are made. The drive for knowledge (3-5 years) relapses into sexual aspects (S. Freud “Three essays on the theory of sexuality” 1905), and the child builds the most diverse theories about sexuality and children’s origin but he doesn’t know about the existence of two fundamental elements: semen and vaginal orifice. From here can emerge a remainder, leaving a permanent damage in the drive for knowledge[5]. Likewise, the way adults manipulate the knowledge is supported by a law which legislates in favor of anonymity when donors are involved. That’s why it is necessary to listen to the couples who need donors before technically taking part in the issue, due to the possible fantasies of rivalry, guilt and debt related to self oedipal representation as well as rivalries with the other progenitor. The knowledge that implies the being is essential for children who were born by assisted reproduction techniques, so they can construct their subjectivity/ identity. Within that construction it is mostly important the information about the characteristics of their conception and their peculiar genetic origin[6]. The UNESCO preserves the children’s right to know about their origin, that is to say, receive information about the donor’s identity. Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland Sweden, United Kingdom and the USA plead and naturally allow revealing the donor’s identity when adulthood. 4.
It keeps and promotes the secret about the child’s
origin as well as the donor’s anonymity, legislated by law about Assisted
Reproduction Techniques of the 11/22/88, still today under revision.
Bibliography
• S. Freud. “Three
essays on the theory of sexuality”. (1905) [1] G. Cánovas. “La maternidad como mandato” Mujer y Salud magazine. (Barcelona 2002) [3] G. Cánnovas. “La maternidad como mandato”. Mujer y Salud magazine (Barcelona, 2002). [4] R. Bayo, G. Cánovas y M. Santis. “Aspectos emocionales de las TRA” (Barcelona, 2004). [5] R. Bayo, G. Cánovas y M. Santis. “Aspectos emocionales de las TRA” (Barcelona, 2004). [6] R. Bayo, G. Cánovas y M. Santis. “Aspectos emocionales de las TRA” (Barcelona, 2004). |
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