Between the social and the biological: rethinking maternity in light of new techniques of assisted reproduction

Abstract

Scientific advances in the area of biotechnology allow for an increasing dissociation between the social and biological components of parentality, with medical discourse attempting, in most cases, to frame the social in the context of the biological so as to not jeopardise consensual definitions of parenting, particularly as regards the understanding of the concept of ‘maternity’. This framing of the social within the biological is visible in the way assisted procreation techniques are often described in the press as simulating a ‘natural’ biological process, a naturalness that the pathology of infertility prevents from taking free course. This article analyses the different and sometimes conflicting understandings of the concept of motherhood subjacent to news coverage of Medically Assisted Procreation by the newspaper Público in the years 2008 and 2009. The analytic corpus demonstrates that by favouring medical discourse in the hegemonic interpretation of the risks and benefits of these reproduction techniques, Público maternity design conveys which privileges the social detriment biological: the transmission of a genetic heritage is regarded as the most important factor when it comes to the definition of motherhood, being that overlaps the dimension of “ educate/raise a child”. Público articulates a conception of maternity that clearly privileges the biological to the detriment of the social: the transmission of genetic heritage is regarded as the most important factor when it comes to the definition of motherhood, impinging upon the dimension of ‘educating/raising a child’.