Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Laura Mamo is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and Lesbian and Gay Studies at the University of Maryland.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

""Queering Reproduction" is the most comprehensive and theoretically rich account of lesbians' reproductive practices to date. Laura Mamo shows how social movements, emotions, consumerism, and biomedical technologies collide with the search for belonging to produce brave new families. She documents how sex without reproduction and reproduction without sex lead to myriad unintended consequences that both queer and normalize. A terrific book."--Arlene Stein, author of "Shameless: Sexual Dissidence in American Culture"

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Queering Reproduction

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................................................................................................ixINTRODUCTION......................................................................................................1CHAPTER ONE From Whence We Came: Sex without Reproduction Meets Reproduction without Sex.........................23CHAPTER TWO "Real Lesbians Don't Have Kids" or Do They? Getting Ready for Lesbian Motherhood.....................58CHAPTER THREE Choosing a Donor: Gaining, Securing, and Seeking Legitimacy........................................86CHAPTER FOUR Negotiating Conception: Lesbians' Hybrid-Technology Practices.......................................128CHAPTER FIVE Going High-Tech: Infertility Expertise and Lesbian Reproductive Practices...........................157CHAPTER SIX Affinity Ties as Kinship Device......................................................................190CHAPTER SEVEN Imagining Futures of Belonging.....................................................................224NOTES.............................................................................................................251WORKS CITED.......................................................................................................273INDEX.............................................................................................................295

Chapter One

IN 1994 ESTHER CALDWELL attended a Women's Action Coalition meeting and heard about a new program called "Lesbians Considering Parenthood," which would soon be offered at a San Francisco feminist health center. As an out lesbian, Esther wasn't sure that children would be part of her future, but she had always wanted kids. She decided to attend the eight-week workshop as well as an instructional class on how to self-inseminate. There were eight women in the class. Each was given a small speculum and advised to hold a mirror between her legs and look inside to find her cervix. Each was then given a little syringe with water to squirt into herself as close to the cervix as possible. Esther thus learned the very simple procedure of alternative insemination. Just as important, Esther met a group of women she would see with regularity over the next ten years. After the workshop concluded, Esther immediately purchased semen from a local sperm bank and performed inseminations at home. Eight months later, she still had not gotten pregnant. Although she planned to continue trying, her plans were derailed by life events-a car accident, a change of living situation, and a break-up.

In 1998 she decided to again attempt pregnancy. This time, everything was different. She had to re-register, for a fee, at the sperm bank that she was using to purchase donor semen. In addition, the sperm bank now required all clients to have a complete "fertility work-up," as well as an intake interview and signed authorization from a designated physician. As a member of a health maintenance organization (HMO), Esther scheduled an appointment with her Ob-Gyn, who, during the exam, told her about their new "infertility clinic." Immediately referred to the clinic, Esther met with a provider who suggested she use a technology called intrauterine insemination (IUI). With IUI, Esther could not inseminate at home, as she had four years earlier, but would have to attend a clinic and have the procedure performed by a nurse.

Esther's story illuminates a key trend of recent decades. As do-it-yourself alternative insemination has evolved (unevenly, but along with women's and lesbians health movements), so, too, has Fertility Inc., a large-scale biomedical service sector so powerful that it threatens to displace the low-tech options often used by lesbians. Esther's personal experience reflects two forces examined in this book: first, the expanded sense of possibility and self-empowerment in the realm of reproduction that emerged in the last decades of the twentieth century, supported by major social movements, including the women's health, gay rights, and lesbian and feminist movements; second, the medicalization of reproduction, facilitated by the emergence of assisted-reproduction technologies. There would seem to be tension-if not outright opposition-between these forces. And yet, as Esther's story illustrates, the recent history of lesbian reproductive practice encompasses both these and a great deal of acceptance.

What explains this shift from self-empowerment and low-tech practices (self-insemination at home) to reliance on high-tech methods (requiring medical intervention in clinics and doctors offices)? To be sure, one might expect medical intervention in cases where pregnancy has been impeded by an individual's health conditions, risk factors, or age. But how did biomedical services come into play in lesbian reproductive practice despite the absence of a medical diagnosis? How can we understand lesbians' decisions to become "patients," that is, to turn to biomedical services and professionals to address a problem that is social rather than medical-a lack of access to sperm? To explore these issues, it is necessary to trace two intertwined strands of medical history: the evolving relationship between medicine and reproduction, and the evolving relationship between medicine and homosexuality.

Looking Back at Medicine and Reproduction

The practice of assisting reproduction is centuries old. It first developed as an efficient method for breeding animals. The earliest reported use of artificial insemination (AI) occurred among Arab horse-breeders in the fourteenth century (Herman 1981, 2). There were frequent and well-known experiments with AI in animals. The first documented success of AI in animals came in 1742 when Ludwig Jacobi, a German natural philosopher and fisherman, artificially fertilized salmon eggs (documented in 1765) (Poynter 1968; Finegold 1976). In 1773 Abbe Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian priest and professor, fertilized frog spawn, silk worms, and salamanders (Zorgniotti 1975) and was said to have produced an offspring by inseminating a female dog in 1780 (Herman 1981, 2; Poynter 1968; Guttmacher 1938).

The idea of assisting human conception appeared as early as 1550, when Bartholomeus Eustacus recommended that a husband guide his semen toward his wife's cervix with his finger to enhance the chances of conception (Rohleder 1934). However, for most of human history, sterility was viewed primarily as a social or moral issue, not as a medical problem requiring treatment. Sterility was defined as an inability to conceive due either to "natural" circumstances such as one's age and length of marriage or to more personal matters such as one's mental, moral, and sexual habits. Childlessness was often believed to denote a barren mind and body. For women, external signs of masculinity, old age, and fatness were all suggestive of disordered sexual health and were considered potential causes of sterility. Idleness, abundant sensuality, eating rich food, sexualized and sexually active behaviors, depression and melancholia, drinking alcohol and/or using drugs were also considered "self-induced immorality leading to childlessness" (Pfeffer 1993). Prior to the late nineteenth century, women did not turn to medical professionals to...