Women's Lived Experiences of Reproductive Technologies. A Feminist Bioethical Approach

CHAPTER I. FEMINIST APPROACHES TO BIOETHICS INTRODUCTION § 1. FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGIES. ON THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN-CENTRED KNOWLEDGE 1.1. Postmodernism, knowledge production and feminism. A paradigm shift 1.2. Standpoint theory and the practice of strong objectivity 1.3. Deconstructing male-produced knowledge 1.4. On feminist research and its methodology § 2. FEMINIST APPROACHES TO BIOETHICS (FAB) 2.1. Two decades of feminist influence in bioethics 2.2. From power to care focus 2.3. Feminist objections to mainstream bioethics and its principles 2.4. Revisiting the mainstream concepts, principles, and methods § 3. RECOVERING WOMEN’S LIVED EXPERIENCE OF REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES 3.1. A phenomenological framework to embodied experience 3.2. A feminist’s methodological adventure trip 3.3. Lessons from online patient groups. On the margins of a pilot study 3.4. Giving patients a voice. On the role of first-person narratives 3.5. Listening to women’s voice. Overcoming testimonial and hermeneutic injustice CONCLUSION CHAPTER II. INFERTILITY AND REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSES INTRODUCTION § 1. INFERTILITY AROUND THE GLOBE. A CROSS-CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL OVERVIEW 1.1. Infertility and culture 1.2. Gender and infertility 1.3. Infertility in the world religions § 2. THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS DISCOURSES IN WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES OF INFERTILITY AND TREATMENT PROCESS 2.1. The Scriptures and personal lived experience 2.2. The official teaching on gender roles, motherhood and John Paul II’s “romantic feminism” 2.3. The lived moral and spiritual experience of Catholic couples 2.4. In God’s laboratory. Between official doctrine and popular forms of religiosity § 3. BARREN, CHILDLESS OR CHILDFREE? A RECENT HISTORY OF FERTILITY TRENDS § 4. THE CONSTRUCTION OF INFERTILITY AT THE CROSSROADS OF COMPETING DISCOURSES 4.1. Alarming rates or new definitions? 4.2. The medicalization of infertility 4.3. The critiques of medicalization 4.4. The feminist account of medicalization § 5. THE SHIFTING ENGINES OF MEDICALIZATION 5.1. The health care institutions, insurance plans, and the pharmaceutical industry 5.2. The empowered consumer of fertility treatments 5.3. Patient-centred care CONCLUSION CHAPTER III. INFERTILITY AND IN VITRO FERTILIZATION (IVF). THE ONTOLOGICAL CHOREOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION § 1. REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES. STATE OF THE ART § 2. THE FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES 2.1. Feminist theories on the use of reproductive technologies 2.2. The mandate for motherhood 2.3. The social issues behind delayed childbearing 2.4. Race, class and other social aspects in the access to reproductive technologies 2.5. Women’s bodies and NRT § 3. INFERTILITY AND IVF TREATMENT 3.1. Writing her story. Women’s counter-narratives and their narrative agency 3.2. Women’s lived experiences 3.3. New manifestations of patient agency § 4. THE ONTOLOGICAL CHOREOGRAPHY OF TECHNOLOGICALLY MEDIATED MOTHERHOOD 4.1. The ontological choreography 4.2. IVF and the narratives of naturalization 4.3. Third-party reproduction and normalization CONCLUSION CHAPTER IV. SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD: FROM SOCIETAL CONSTRUCTIONS TO PERSONAL EXPERIENCES INTRODUCTION § 1. THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE REPRODUCTIVE PROCESS AND THE NEW CRITERIA FOR MOTHERHOOD 1.1. Definitions of a mother before and after the advent of reproductive technologies 1.2. Competing definitions and their contexts 1.3. The new defining criteria for motherhood: genes, birth or nurturing? § 2. SURROGACY PRACTICES. STATE OF THE ART 2.1. Surrogacy practices across time and cultures 2.2. Surrogacy today. Etymology and definitions 2.3. Types of surrogacy arrangements § 3. THE ETHICAL CHALLENGES OF SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD 3.1. The current state of affairs 3.2. The main feminist standpoints on surrogacy § 4. WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES OF SURROGACY. BETWEEN DETACHMENT AND CONCEPTION IN THE HEART 4.1. Women’s reasons to become surrogates 4.2. To bond or not to bond ? Solving the cognitive dissonance § 5. REPRODUCTIVE OUTSOURCING IN INDIA. TOWARDS A MODEL OF EMPATHIC SOLIDARITY 5.1. Reproductive choices and global inequalities 5.2. Focus on the relationships. From a special friendship to DHL surrogacy 5.3. Towards an ethic of care and empathic solidarity § 6. KINSHIP AS A NEGOTIATED EXPERIENCE. THE TECHNOLOGICALLY EXTENDED FAMILY CONCLUSION CHAPTER V THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF RESPONSIBILITY IN PRENATAL CHOICES. BETWEEN PERSONAL DISCERNMENT AND NORMATIVE FRAMEWORKS INTRODUCTION § 1. PRENATAL SCREENING AND DIAGNOSIS. STATE OF THE ART 1.1. Current prenatal screening and testing methods 1.2. Prenatal diagnosis in a global perspective 1.3. State of the art in Flanders 1.4. The ethical challenges of a non-directive prenatal counselling § 2. PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS IN THE PUBLIC DISCOURSES. THE EMERGING ETHICAL DISCUSSIONS § 3. PROSPECTIVE MOTHERS AND THEIR LIVED EXPERIENCE OF PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS 3.1. The ethical and psychological aspects of the decision-making process 3.2. The experience of prenatal choices. From public discourses to the personal level § 4. FEMINIST CRITIQUES ON PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS 4.1. To test or not to test? The inescapable burden of choice 4.2. Transforming the pregnancy experience 4.3. The negotiation of responsibilities in the family. Gendered differences 4.4. From virtues to an ethics of care § 5. THE SHIFTING NOTIONS OF PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY CONCLUSION CHAPTER VI. FEMINIST THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS INTRODUCTION § 1. FEMINIST THEOLOGICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HERSTORY 1.1. The category of women’s experience in feminist theology 1.2. The deconstruction of male discourse 1.3. Feminist hermeneutics as a suspicious regard on the Bible 1.4. Writing herstory. In memory of the unnamed women 1.5. Feminist theology as a discourse of liberation § 2. THE NEED FOR A COMPASSIONATE PRAXIS § 3. ADVOCATING A NEW FEMINIST-INSPIRED THEOLOGICAL BIOETHICS GENERAL CONCLUSIONstatus: publishe