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The Elusive Embryo
How Women and Men Approach New Reproductive Technologies
Gay Becker
Genes and Generations
We had this unfortunate thing happen to us. We're not able to create a family. We're not able to fulfill the second half, or the third part, of the American dream. It just seems terribly un-American.The discovery of infertility leads women and men to question a lifetime of assumptions about how the world is ordered. Beliefs about biology, reproductive potential, gender roles, definitions of family and kin, the meaning of being a person, explanations of how the world works--all are torn down. Tanya goes to the heart of the matter when she bemoans the loss of the "American dream." Having children is taken for granted by most people in the United States, but Tanya and her husband don't fit in. Her articulation of an "outsider" experience reflects how troubling unwanted childlessness can be: it creates a profound sense of disorder in Tanya's life. When women and men engage with new reproductive technologies in an effort to conceive, they do so in an effort to reestablish order in their lives, to reclaim their right to be American and to everything that identity signifies.Tanya, thirty-five years old
When my sister was alive, my brother-in-law had a vasectomy. And they chose not to have any children. Not an easy decision. My husband's brother is disabled and very unlikely to ever marry or have children. Those are the only kids. This is it. We are it. And so there's this "generations" concern. You're not only not producing another child, but you are the only one who could possibly produce a grandchild. And you also feel like there is some terrible sense of not going into the future. Just this lack of regeneration and new life. A feeling of going on into your old age and a kind of longing for that [regeneration of self]. I also think you feel totally isolated. It's ironic. Everyone's out there: "Family family family!" I think you have this terrible sense of isolation and loss.
Alicia, forty-three years old
Although Tanya is African American, in using the metaphor of the American dream she is reaching beyond her specific ethnic group to encompass shared understandings in American culture about the meaning of family. Tanya's generation is the first to have been systematically exposed to television's symbols of mythical American dream families, as in Ozzie and Harriet and The Cosby Show. In contemporary political life, the slogan family values has become not only media shorthand for dominant cultural ideologies but also a political tool. Dialogues about family values in American politics are laden with moral authority: those who are not viewed as upholding family values are looked down on and may even be viewed as "un-American." Being childless does not fit these cultural ideals of family, and consequently, women and men feel the weight of moralizing dialogues about normalcy. (note 1) Like Tanya, Alicia comments on feeling isolated from others by childlessness. She raises an additional concern, as well, about "the lack of regeneration and new life," which disrupts expectations about the flow of generations.
Values are the ground on which cultural dialogues develop. They give unifying meaning to people's lives and are a primary means through which individuals interpret and explain reality. (note 2) Through values people are able to make connections between the mundane events of everyday life and broader social, historical, political, and economic arenas. People in chaos cling to values as a means of ordering and making sense out of their experiences. Values may be linked to memories of significant life experiences to form an individual belief system, to life experiences and goals for action, or to the ways in which dominant social ideologies are connected to experience: for example, people may cite their values and life experiences in support of a specific ideology. (note 3) Values are integral to culturally specific guidance for individual action and are the basis for commonsense ideas about the world. Indeed, values lead to the creation and perpetuation of ideologies, which often encompass and synthesize several related values. (note 4)
It is necessary to understand the force of values in a society to understand both the paralyzing grip that infertility can have on people and the effect of reproductive technologies on society. This is a complex task, however, because U.S. society is remarkably heterogeneous, encompassing multiple ethnic groups, religions, age groups, sexual orientations, social classes, and political persuasions. Discussions of values may seem to have a leveling effect, assuming that everyone subscribes to the same ones. This is far from the case. However, there are dominant cultural ideologies with which people must contend whether they subscribe to them or not. These have roots in Western thought, religion, and historical practices. (note 5)
I have discussed disruption and the expectation of continuity in life at length elsewhere. (note 6) The tendency in the United States to focus on continuity in life rather than on disruption can be seen as a cultural ideology that informs people's efforts to ameliorate infertility: these are attempts to restore order to their lives. (note 7) People have clear ideas about what constitutes order in a wide variety of contexts, and they create order in culturally specific ways. The tendency to view life as a predictable, continuous flow heightens people's sense of disruption when something unexpected occurs. (note 8)
Many people's lives are anchored by a belief in a cosmic order. (note 9) Narratives about origins describe the order of things and the relationship between things and different kinds of people; origin stories thus have a sacred quality. The discovery of infertility challenges people's identities because it strikes at the origin stories in which they believe. Such assaults on fundamental beliefs may contribute to an erosion of faith in explanatory schemes, to renewed efforts to shore up those perspectives, or to both. (note 10) Women and men facing infertility are bewildered by the threat to their gender identity and to their explanations of how the world works, but they usually renew their efforts to have children, taking action for themselves individually as well as sometimes joining a self-help group.
Expectations about continuity permeate responses to disruption as well as efforts to create continuity after the disruption. A particular cultural view of order enables people to believe that it will eventually be regained. Steven, forty-two-years old, compares his previously orderly life with the incongruity of having a problem such as infertility:
I think of myself as a "good person." It [infertility] goes against the way I've interpreted life so far. In a way it's been easy for me to interpret life so far because I've led a--I don't want to say a charmed life--but I've gotten off pretty okay. Haven't had physical problems, never been sick, very loving parents, of means, you know, middle-class, done well in school, gotten by, had good jobs, all that stuff. I don't want to say that I haven't struggled, because I always worked hard to get what I want, but I haven't had troubles with a capital T. So this is for me a profound period of deep struggle.
I'm not sure how it fits into my life, which is new to me. I'm suspecting it's one of those things that's so intensely difficult it will help me build character. Because by and large, although I've worked for what I wanted and received, I haven't had things taken from me. I haven't not been able to get what I want. This is the first time that I haven't been able to get what I want and may not be able to get what I want. It feels like a story that hasn't played itself out yet, and I don't like being this far away from knowing the outcome.
REPRODUCTION AS NATURAL ORDER
The families I am concerned with in this book are heterosexual couples who intend to have children, a model that continues to dominate cultural dialogues on the family in the United States and that represents the cultural norm. As Jane Collier and Sylvia Yanagisako observe, the U.S. folk model of reproduction contains the underlying "assumption that 'male' and 'female' are two natural categories of human beings whose relationships are everywhere structured by their biological difference." (note 14) Biologically driven kinship continues to dominate the view of families in the United States despite anthropological analyses that demonstrate that kinship is a symbolic system, not a natural system. (note 15) Kinship with others is based either on blood ties or on marital ties. Of the two, blood ties are seen as more binding. Yet the idea of what constitutes a family has recently undergone major expansion, as increased numbers of families are headed by gay couples, single parents, and grandparents and other relatives. (note 16) And families are no longer defined simply by the presence of children. Large numbers of childless couples have led to increased recognition that families come in many forms.
Meanings of male and female reflect culturally imposed differences that have their basis in the structures of a society. They are not simply "natural" differences. But American views of reproduction are so focused on biology that many people find other ways of seeing reproduction implausible. (note 17) This makes it very difficult for people who are unsuccessful in conceiving. Other cultures regard reproduction differently, for example as a cultural achievement rather than a biological process. Annette Weiner, in studying Trobriand Islanders, concluded that biological reproduction was sufficient to produce a biological human being but not a Trobriander. Among Trobrianders, reproduction brings together social, cosmological (religious), material, and physical dimensions of culture to create a child's cultural identity, the most significant component of which is kinship--the person's relationship to ancestors, parents, siblings, and extended kin. (note 18)
This biological focus in the United States is misplaced. When we hear what people think is really important about having a child, it is not biology but having a child who is emotionally connected with the family, who develops a strong identity, and who is integrated into his or her community--indeed, the very qualities that make up a Trobriander! New reproductive technologies reinforce the cultural ideology of biological parenthood, diverting people from their primary goal to become parents and greatly lengthening the process.
Assisted reproductive technologies provide an endless array of medical treatments designed to produce a biological child. But these technologies have also introduced treatments that result in children being born who may not be biologically linked to their parents, such as technologies using donor gametes. The use of these technologies is sometimes kept confidential so that only the parents know if one or both parents are not the biological, or biogenetic, parents. Such practices perpetuate the dominance of the biological model.
Women and men in this study expressed the need to persevere with infertility treatment because they felt entitled to fulfill the norm of biological parenthood. People place the struggle to conceive within Western conceptions of culture and biology, as Jana, a seven-time IVF user, attests. She epitomizes attitudes expressed by study participants: "The need to reproduce is probably next after survival. It's even wrapped up in survival, I'm sure. Are people entitled to be treated for infertility when children are starving? Everybody is entitled to have their needs met. We can do without bombers and stuff like that. Those resources should be reallocated, not infertile people's money, or the chance to have children." Jana paints a dramatic picture of entitlement on moral grounds and juxtaposes bombers against it, which she considers to be wasteful of life and superfluous. Underlying these images is a belief in "natural" order, that goodness will prevail over evil. Jana's comment about the need to reproduce illustrates the cultural belief in the primacy of biology in parenthood. Her comment also attests to the moral authority of her position. It is one indication of the power of the cultural ideology of biological parenthood that so permeates people's approach to parenthood.
This dominant cultural model of biological reproduction is based on the Western theory of natural order. Media portrayals of natural order abound, especially in science programs about biological phenomena among different species. Such programs powerfully reinforce cultural beliefs. (note 19) Jo Ann, a forty-five-year-old woman who had finally abandoned efforts to conceive, discussed how one of these programs affected her: "This TV program I watched made a point of saying that the end point of all biological systems is reproduction, and that in many species the adults die but biology doesn't care what happens to parents after the point of conception, that the force of life is about reproducing." The idea that the purpose of life is reproduction suggests to those who are unable to have a biological child that they are superfluous. Jo Ann's husband, Brad, interjected, "Biologically, you're reduced because you're infertile." Jo Ann went on, "That's right, so you don't realize the throwback. This gets back to the purpose of life. So in the universe you just have to make more of yourself. And you're lucky if you have different dimensions."
Jo Ann had been addressing these very issues for the past several years. Each time I interviewed her she had questioned her purpose in life and her efforts to make more of herself to make up for not having children. Brad's remark underscores this sentiment.
Jo Ann and Brad take this biological generalization from a TV program and personalize it, underscoring the pervasiveness of such messages about the primacy of biology. They are forced to ponder deep philosophical issues about themselves in relation to the world, as Brad does:
I've been going back to that experience at the infertility workshop we told you about. There's a spiritual omen to that: what is the meaning of life? What are we doing here? Are we just animals that are reproducing our DNA? Or are there other things that are as important, if not maybe more important, in life? These are multifaceted and complex questions, and most people never get past it.... A lot of people don't get past being intelligent animals. It's sort of sad to see. I saw three men who doubted their masculinity because they were not able to father their child. I've never been in a group of men where there's been more raw emotion expressed than in that workshop. Men are usually reserved and reasonable and stuff, but I saw more pain openly demonstrated, talked about, and more tears in that experience with men than in any other experience I've ever had with other men. A man thinks that because his sperm doesn't have active flagella that he's not a human being? Not a man? Incredible! Others think he must not have a soul? He must not think he has any meaning beyond that. That's pretty sad.
This discussion illustrates how science-based models alter explanations and meanings of things. Brad suggests that the acceptance of science models has confused how people think about natural order and about themselves. He then unwittingly demonstrates this mixture of models. He questions the science metaphor of people as animals, yet he then applies the metaphor to his fellow workshop participants. He pits the science model against the meaning of life and suggests there is a "spiritual omen" about biological reductionism. He also addresses the assault of components of the science model (sperm with active flagella) on men's sense of masculinity, and ultimately, on their humanness. In doing so, he demonstrates that cultural notions of order in the universe are implicit.
In a discussion with Hank, a forty-year-old man, and his wife about the possibility that they might either use a donated egg or adopt, Hank raised the notion of natural selection and related issues about biological lineage:
Trained as an evolutionary biologist, I feel like I wouldn't date just anyone. You know, I dated women that I really liked, and respected, and admired. But I wouldn't want to just throw my sperm in with any old egg, either. I believe in not just selection and people, but animals, plants, all choosing their mates, and so picking an anonymous mate sort of goes against this long-term scholastic training. And more than that, it's a personal philosophy. It's really how I think. So it's part of the reason why I have trouble with adoption. It's this same sort of issue. You know, I want that lineage.
Although he attributes his ideas about natural selection to scholastic training, Hank also acknowledges them as a "personal philosophy." Natural selection is part of his explanation of how the world works. His desire for "lineage" and everything it signifies is related to this belief. This stance upholds a patriarchal perspective on reproduction, although that is not Hank's intent. His stance does not augur well for the couple's becoming parents. He acknowledges that he and his wife are approaching the problem from different perspectives:
But we're at a different place here because I'm not having the fertility problem right now. I'm approaching it and probably feeling about it differently....I have different issues than she does, who is facing her own infertility. And I think that colors it a bit, how we look at this, and the way we approach it. It really does shade how you approach it. As far as we know, I'm fertile right now and I have an infinite number of possibilities ahead of me, whereas she doesn't. So that's one thing. The other thing that we talked about is that we came to the recognition that everything we've done up to this point has been really easy. That has been the stuff that we always wanted, which was her egg, my sperm.
For Hank the early stages of medical treatment for infertility have been "easy" because they involved the couple's own biological material. Egg and sperm are cultural icons that signify manhood and womanhood. (note 20) Joining them together signifies the conjunction of cultural ideals. In the face of declining hopes of having a biological child, Hank clings to these ideals because they represent more than the "facts of life"--they represent culture as he knows it, a way of life. What remains unspoken in Hank's comments is whether he would prefer to stand by these cultural ideals, and forgo parenthood altogether than to raise a child he might not view as truly "his."
EMBODIED GENES
Biological determinism in the United States has expressed itself in a wide range of contexts. It has been the basis of justifications for racist views, rationales for intelligence testing, and arguments against adoption. (note 21) In particular, these ideas have been represented in eugenics movements. The emphasis on "parental worthiness" at the beginning of the twentieth century led to a campaign for mandatory sterilization of those who were thought to be unfit. Views of African Americans and other people of color as inferior fueled this movement through much of the century. (note 22)
Dorothy Nelkin and Susan Lindee observe that biological determinism is now being embraced in a new form, genetic essentialism, which "reduces the self to a molecular entity, equating human beings, in all their social, historical, and moral complexity, with their genes." (note 23) Tracing the history of this trend through the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century, to a reaction against eugenics because of the rise of Hitler in Germany in the mid-1930s, to a subsequent shift to the primacy of "nurture" in the nature-nurture debate, they now see a new development: a swing back to an emphasis on "nature" through the "molecular family." They note that the idea of the molecular family is based on the cultural expectation that a biological entity can determine emotional connections and social bonds--that genetics can link people to each other and preserve a reliable model for a family. (note 24) The effects of these social and historical shifts on families and on people who contemplate starting a family have been complex.
In this study women and men expressed a wide range of opinions about the importance of genes, and those opinions could often be directly related to the extent of their experience with infertility. That is, opinions changed over time as many eventually relinquished the goal of biological parenthood. Even early in their efforts to conceive, some people felt genes were unimportant and were eloquent about the importance of social parenthood. The majority, however, initially felt that biological parenthood was important. Everyone in the study agreed that cultural ideas about biological parenthood had to be reckoned with, regardless of an individual's own beliefs, because of the attitudes that their children would confront. David, thirty-seven years old, comments:
There are milestones [in life]. I mean, marriage was a milestone, being in the Army, university, traveling. Different things were milestones. But there is no kind of societal milestone, like, you know, you're finally grown up. Someone gives you this certificate. But I think I've had a sense somehow that when I will be a father I will have a sense of that connection, that kind of lineage through the generations. Coming from my father, my grandfather, my mother, her side of the family kind of coming through me. And the sense of "Well, now I'm the parent." And I'm responsible, rather than this kind of, uh, it's almost this kind of limbo thing that I'm not...I'm no longer a child. That is very obvious to me, and, at the same time, there's something tangible that's missing. I don't know if it's a manifestation through a child. But that's part of it.
It's part of an adopted responsibility. It's one of the expectations, a mark of an adult of someone who works, someone who is married, raises a family.
David voices several cultural expectations about family creation and parenting that are widely shared among people experiencing infertility: first, the idea that a series of milestones lead up to parenthood; second, the feeling of limbo when parenthood does not occur, and David feels that he is neither a child any longer nor yet a full-fledged adult; (note 25) and third, the loss of generational continuity, of passing on traditions from one's forebears to the next generation. David's feeling that something tangible is missing, the manifestation of these experiences through a child, was expressed in one way or another by everyone in this study. His conclusion that parenting is an "adopted" responsibility underscores the essence of his statement: parenthood, along with other cultural expectations, gives definition to adulthood.
At the end of his interview, an hour later, David is asked if infertility affects his sense of purpose in life. He returns to the same themes:
I have this feeling that when I become a parent things will fall into place. I have this desire to connect with others in community, and that comes from a place that would normally go to a child, if a child were there. It's not like I don't have a purpose. But I'm really aware of not feeling...I grew up feeling unconnected to my father but I somehow feel that by having a child I will somehow feel more grounded and somehow feel that lineage that came through my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, kind of through me, and goes on through the child. And somehow now I'm on the end of this sword. Like a fencing sword, so it's like I'm on the tip of it and it's kind of moving around, and I'm kind of moving around. I'm in this kind of limbo space. And there's nothing forcing the end of the sword to stand still. And if I had a child I guess I would feel like that would stabilize. But it's not like I walk around saying, "Woe is me, I don't have a purpose in life because I don't have a child."
David again expresses his sense of limbo and a desire to feel "grounded." His image of a wavering sword is a powerful metaphor for limbo. He juxtaposes this image with a desire for stability, which he equates with community and assumes that a child would provide.
David then returns to comments about generations and lineage, questioning himself in the process:
I notice every time I say it, the linkage of the generations, that I say my father and his father and my dad, and maybe I'm making an assumption that I'm going to have a male child. But I don't know if it's as a man or as a human being. I mean, it's hard for me to differentiate between the two. I've never been a locker room kind of guy. I can't say that there's any kind of thing that goes into that that makes it difficult. But out in society, and oh, just being at a point where I would like to be a father, I think.
I have felt a sense of jealousy around men that I know that have kids. There's a bond there that I don't have, you know. I know that I don't belong to that club. So I feel like, as a man, maybe on that level I'm left out of something.
Although David is unsure about what he thinks specifically about a male child, it is clear that parenting has a definite set of cultural meanings in connecting him to other men--both to his father and the male line in his family and to other men his own age. When he reports feeling jealous and left out, he echoes another dominant theme among women and men who are dealing with infertility.
Angela, whom we first met in chapter 2, expresses this theme from a woman's perspective:
I think that another issue that has come up for me since the miscarriage, the fact that I'm a woman in his [husband's] family and I'm not productive, and he's a male, and "What if no one can carry on the line?" You know, the lineage and the name that goes with it. His sister-in-law's baby, it was another girl, so now there's two girls in the family.
And my cousins--all younger than me, having babies. Young eggs. I'm thinking, "Am I old?" Then I start thinking, "How do the aunts see me?" I still can't get pregnant, and I had a miscarriage, and I think about it in the back of my mind. Like, "So how do I fit in with the whole scheme of things? Do I belong?" And I didn't realize how powerful my aunts and uncles were when I was growing up, because we had that kind of tight-knit family where you see them every Sunday and everyone looked out for one another. So their opinions of me have a lasting effect, and it reinforces my feeling that I'm different in the family. I have to disregard their perceptions of me.
Angela raises the same concerns as David did about lineage and the family line, and particularly about continuing the male line. David himself acknowledges that his thoughts keep returning to his male forebears. He never mentions carrying on his wife's line: his concerns relate solely to his own family. And although Angela uses the women in her own family as the measure of her gender performance, it is carrying on her husband's line that concerns her. Patriarchal imperatives underlie both women's and men's efforts to conceive a biological child. While David's feelings of being an outsider are based on comparisons to other men, Angela raises the same questions with respect to other women. Dialogues about gender and dialogues about kinship are inextricably connected.
Ashley and Scott, a couple in their late thirties, are also thrashing out these issues as they continue trying to conceive. They agree on only some of them. They have different ideas about the importance of biology. Although Ashley maintains that biology is not important to her, she contradicts herself:
I am not the kind of person that really romanticizes pregnancy. With my surgical history and my age, I already know that it will be a C-section. My doctor has told me. But I don't romanticize the physical discomfort. In our support group we have met women where carrying the baby is so important to them and going through the birth process. And for me, I want to be a parent, that is what excites me, so I can give that up, the pregnancy part, easily. The genetic part, I actually can give that up too, in a way, because first of all, I don't think that I have such great genes, and I think when I fantasize of a child, I don't think of a little Ashley. I think of a little Scott, and I kind of fantasize all of his great qualities and I hope it has red hair and I hope that it is good in math, and I hope that it has this easy-going disposition, so I kind of imagine a little Scott.
I don't really want it to have my qualities, I want it to have his qualities. Probably because with this infertility thing, my self-esteem has just plummeted, and I have lost touch with what I even like about myself. So I feel like if it takes after me, it will be compulsive and anxious, and terrible in math, and I guess I really don't want to reproduce myself. But I would like to reproduce him; so that does seem like a lot [to wish for]. But when I am being really realistic about it, I know you usually don't get what you want, anyway. It is a roll of the dice that I would have just as good a chance [of] reproducing the worst qualities in me or the worst qualities in him. You can't cherry-pick for quality.
As she tries to enumerate what is important to her, it emerges that the biological connection is important to Ashley, but it is her husband's genes she is concerned with, not hers. But Ashley, like many other women in this study who were unsuccessful in becoming pregnant, mourned the loss of being able to see her partner in a child, thus asserting the connection between patriarchy and biology. This tendency could be viewed as a desire simply to reproduce the partner. Men in this study, however, did not make the same comment. Men who were considering donor insemination hoped that the child would at least look like one of them or stated a wish for the wife to experience a pregnancy, but they did not talk about the wish to see specific physical features of the partner reproduced. Maintaining the biological lineage through a child that is not only biologically related but that visibly resembles the father may reinforce patriarchy.
When Ashley likens the genetic makeup of a child to a dice game, she uses a gambling metaphor that arose repeatedly in this study. A second metaphor, about "cherry-picking" the qualities of a child, reinforces her feelings about gambling and her anxieties about not being able to control the process. These metaphors help Ashley to deal with the uncertainty she experiences and also are part of a shift in her attitudes about the importance of genetics, in which she is coming to see nonbiological parenthood as equally valid.
The negative feelings that Ashley expresses about herself and her own genes were common among women. The effects of repeated medical treatment and the necessity of a cesarean section also contribute to her portrayal of herself and her body as defective. Cultural ideologies about womanhood and the capacity for motherhood profoundly affect women's gender identity.
As Ashley talks, she continues to register ambivalence about giving up the idea of a biological child:
So I think that whole genetic thing is really a bunch of crap. You get what you get, and in terms of the bonding, I have known friends where it was their own child and they had trouble bonding with it. And so I think that instant bonding is a myth. And I think that if you want to be a parent and you have longed for a child the way adoptive parents have, I think that maybe you even have a greater chance, if not as good a chance, of bonding with just a concept. So I don't worry about the bonding. I can give up the genes easily. I worry so about the child being accepted into the family in terms of the grandparents. You know, not having that link of heritage. Of feeling this is our little line carrying on. So that seems like a little bit of a rough spot, but it feels far enough away that I am not too worried about it now.
But I do think about how when you have your own children, and everybody is always saying, "Oh, that expression is just like your grandfather's, or just like your mother's." That in some way that is very enjoyable and quaint and bonding with the whole family, but in some ways I think it is not the best thing for children because it gets turned around, too. We have all grown up with the parents saying, "You have a temper just like your father," so I think that even though it can be played out in a positive way, it can also be played out in a negative way and maybe more commonly is. In some ways not being able to do that because you know the child doesn't have your genes--in some ways I think it may be to their advantage that the child--I am sure you can still screw up your child in all the ways that you can screw up, but that is one particular way that we probably won't have open to us. Because the child will have to sort of stand on its own genetics, or something, on its own genes.
So I guess I am sort of... maybe because it is more an intellectual thing, I am intrigued by the possibilities and also the personal growth challenges and opportunities of not having our own genetic children. But I don't think that extends as far as taking in a special needs child or some of the classic issues. And, like Scott, I think that this is perfectly legitimate, worrying about the health of the child. And the health of the birth mother and all those sorts of very legitimate concerns. But all this sort of stuff with heritage and genes, I think that is kind of...I don't know.
Ashley firmly rejects the "myth" of instant bonding with a biological child, thus voicing a widespread assumption that is insidiously reinforced in the child-rearing literature read by the general public. Many women and men expressed fears that they would not be able to bond with a child who was not biologically "theirs," whether that child was adopted or was conceived with donor gametes. This concern was subsequently dismissed by everyone in our study who became parents of nonbiological children.
Ashley sees adoption as "an intellectual" thing from which she would benefit, a possibility for self-growth. This is an effective, middle-class way of rationalizing not getting her first choice, a biological child, and it enables her to begin considering adoption as an alternative.
At this point, Scott, who has been listening quietly, interjects his views:
I don't feel all the things that Ashley does, so I just want to get that out. [To Ashley:] I thought what you said, you said very well, and a lot of the things that you did say I agree with. [Turning to interviewer:] Clearly whether I adopt a child or not, I am not going to go through, personally, the pregnancy, but I will not have any opportunity of going through the pregnancy with Ashley. And that, to me, does mean something to me. It will be a loss to me that I am going to have to deal with. I said in our discussion group at Resolve a couple of weeks ago, when I heard of my brother's first child being born, and the party they had, how powerful it was for me. And again, this was the first grandchild in our family, so that had special significance for my father and mother. But the whole process was bringing the child into the world was something. It was a journey. Not that there isn't a similar-or different- kind of adoption journey that you go through, and depending on your relationship with your birth mother, you can be present at the birth and all these things. I am learning all these things, and this excites me, too. But I am going to feel that loss if we don't do that [conceive themselves].
Secondly, genes, heritage, it doesn't quite capture my feelings about it. But, it is not like--I guess it is in some ways--the selfish feeling that I want to have my genes and Ashley's genes regardless of how good they are. I think that is what it is. It is my gift. To me, it is one of the greatest gifts I can give to the world, is giving of myself through my genetics.
Scott's statement captures the cultural significance with which a birth is greeted, not only by the parents but by extended family members as well. Such experiences reinforce the cultural ideology of biological parenthood, which is symbolized by genes. Scott reaffirms his desire for his own and Ashley's genes, regardless of their quality. For Scott, his genes are embodied. He sees them as a way of sharing himself with the world, a form of community. This statement can be interpreted as a belief in his genetic superiority, or as communal feeling, or both these things. (note 26) However he intends it, Ashley takes issue with him:
Ashley: I just think that is bullshit.
Scott: But the bullshit means something to me. I feel it. All right, discount it for you, but I am saying for me.
Ashley: I think that the greatest gift we can give is to bring up a child, and to me that is the gift.
Scott: To me that is the gift to the world. I agree with that, but there is something powerful. I can't explain it, but there is something very powerful.
Ashley: But it is just an accident, parenting.
Scott: You are being very rational. I am just telling you that is something powerful for me.
Ashley: I can't agree.
Scott: Well, maybe you can't. Okay. All I am saying is that is how I feel about it.
Ashley: Well, really, you should give to a sperm bank. I always thought, "Who would give to a sperm bank?" I guess maybe that is how they feel.
Scott: That doesn't mean much to me. What means a lot to me is the mutual creation of another person.
To Scott, using his own genes to create a child has deeply rooted cultural meanings. Ashley, on the other hand, has detached herself from the cultural significance of parenting a biological child to focus on parenting without biology. Scott disagrees with Ashley's implication that this desire represents male egotism about the value of his genes.
Ashley, responding positively to his statement, continues the discussion, but in a more conciliatory vein:
I think the miracle of life, that is high. And that is what you heard at your brother's party. But that is what we hear from adoptive parents when they are witnessing the birth of their child because it is a miracle of life, and it is feeling some emotion attached to that miracle. It is not something that you are watching on TV. It is something that you have a relationship with.
So, I think that the feelings are as intensive, and I guess for pregnancy--given that I feel like every bad thing that could have happened has happened--getting pregnant is just the beginning of a whole bunch of more risks. That you have to make it to the three months, then at my age you know you have to make it, and hope that it doesn't have Down's and get through the birth, which would be harder. I would be forty years old. And I guess to me it just seems so perilous, and I probably would be anxious through the whole thing. Having a twenty-five-year-old carry the pregnancy seems a lot safer, even though, of course, there are other control issues with that.
Ashley delineates the critical social significance of the birth of a child, regardless of whether it is biological: having a relationship with the child, experiencing intense emotions about it. But once she has imagined the birth of a child, her bodily knowledge momentarily takes over, as she remembers the perils of unsuccessful pregnancies, both real and imagined. Scared by all the problems she foresees, she quickly rejects this possibility once again.
Asked by the interviewer if she has thought of using a surrogate, she said, "Yes, I want his genes. I don't care about my genes. That's interesting. I think I would if it was easy to do."
With no hesitation, Scott said, "If it was easy to do, I would consider it."
Ashley, forgetting her fears about pregnancy, begins to recant her willingness to use a surrogate: "And then we could do donor egg, which is basically the same thing."
Donor egg is not the same thing, as Ashley knows, having explored this medical option thoroughly. Having toyed with surrogacy for just a moment, but long enough for Scott to state his willingness to consider it, she moves to another technology, donor egg, that would give her more "control" over the pregnancy, even though the only worry it would alleviate, in her case, is the fear of Down's syndrome. (note 27)
They spent a few more minutes exploring this possibility and then, asked how their parents would feel if they adopted, Ashley began talking about adoption again:
I am concerned about that. I think that my mom could love the child instantly whatever it was. My dad, I think, maybe intellectually could talk himself into it but might have some trouble on the emotional level. We talk about adoption, it is not like they...I haven't actually said to them, "What do you think about adoption?" But they supplied me with names of people they know, and they seem to be supportive of all that, and so I imagine that maybe their longing, just like our longing, kind of changes you and kind of breaks down some of those biases. But I do have some concerns because my dad can certainly be prejudiced, and I am not sure about a child of another race. I am not sure for us, but I am sure my dad would not accept that.
Scott, too, has concerns:
I am not sure if my parents would accept that, too. But I sort of let my parents know that we are considering adoption. I have not asked them, "What do you think?"
Ashley continues,
I think for me, I don't want to know. I feel like I am dealing with so much. I don't want the kibosh put on it early in the process.
Scott adds: "I feel the same way."
Uncertain about how their parents will feel about an adoption, they are not providing any openings for the parents to voice an opinion. In this respect they echo the majority of people in this study, who feared that parental resistance to adoption would undermine their efforts to proceed. The cultural ideology of the biological child has such power that even when couples have worked through and reconciled many aspects of this ideology for themselves, they fear derailment of their plans by family members.
The cultural ideology of biological parenthood powerfully underscores issues about the potential parent being a full person. There is a strong relationship between living out one's gender identity and subscribing to biological determinism. When David discusses how definitions of family are connected to definitions of adulthood, he is connecting these cultural dialogues with issues of being a person and gender identity. Similarly, when Brad reflects on the anguish of men who cannot fulfill cultural expectations about potency, he is addressing gender identity and personhood. Indeed, everyone in this chapter has addressed what it means to be a person, and everyone has addressed the turmoil of having their bodily and social identities overturned. Some are rehearsing alternative possibilities, such as adoption and surrogacy, to find another way to fit into the cultural ideology of reproduction. At the same time, they are resisting the conclusions they reach about not belonging.
These stories reveal that the cultural ideology of biological parenthood is first and foremost about the self and not about the child. The assault women and men experience on their gender identity comes about because cultural ideologies support the assumption that biological performance--reproduction--is central to being a person. The goal of parenting a child is therefore completely displaced while people grapple with the relationship of the self to biology. These stories are not concerned with what would be best for the child; that question comes much later, after the initial impact of infertility on people's gender identity begins to abate and they begin to ask themselves what is really important. First, they must move beyond the cultural impasse of equating selfhood with biological functions. This is no small task. Understandings of self encompass the self as a biological entity, attesting to the ways in which cultural conceptions of the person as a biological being are lived out. The careful dissection of cultural dialogues on genes and generations is a first step in people's efforts to scrutinize these relationships.
2. This is the view of Margaret Clark and Barbara Anderson: see Clark and Anderson, Culture and Aging. back to text
3. For discussion of the relationship of values to memories, life experiences, and social ideologies, see Quinn, "Motivational Force"; Holland, "How Cultural Systems Become Desire"; and Claudia Strauss, "What Makes Tony Run?" back to text
4. For a discussion of the relationship between values and culturally specific direction, see D'Andrade, "Cultural Meaning Systems." For a discussion of how values become the basis for commonsense constructions of the world, see Quinn and Holland, "Culture and Cognition," 11. back to text
5. See Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart; Dumont, Essays on Individualism; Hewitt, Dilemmas of the American Self; Wilkinson, Pursuit of American Character. back to text
6. See Becker, Disrupted Lives. back to text
7. Efforts to ensure continuity, in cases of infertility, are made through use of reproductive technologies. See Becker, ibid. back to text
8. In Disrupted Lives I outline the contemporary Western conception of the course of life as predictable, knowable, and continuous. back to text
9. The postmodern turn challenges notions that the world is an ordered place. See, for example, Derrida, Of Grammatology. Nevertheless, people view their worlds as ordered. According to Hallowell (Culture and Experience, 94-95), order lies at the foundations of structures of meaning in human life, and it permeates social life. Geertz (Interpretation of Cultures, 90) observes that identities are secured when individual lives are anchored to some kind of larger, cosmic order. See also Lyon, "Order and Healing," 260, and Becker, Disrupted Lives. back to text
10. Yanagisako and Delaney, "Naturalizing Power," 2. back to text
11. See Wilkinson, Pursuit of American Character, 19, 50; Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart, 56, 206. back to text
12. Self-determination is an important aspect of individualism in the United States. See Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart. back to text
13. See Sandelowski, "Compelled to Try." back to text
14. Collier and Yanagisako, "Introduction," 7. To understand women's and men's responses to infertility and their actions, we must tease apart the folk model of reproduction. Yanagisako and Collier ("Toward a Unified Analysis," 40-42), suggest that the first step is to examine cultural meanings that play into the symbolic construction of categories of people. back to text
15. See Franklin, Embodied Progress; Edwards et al., Technologies of Procreation; Schneider, American Kinship; Strathern, After Nature and Reproducing the Future; Weiner, "Reproductive Model" and "Trobriand Kinship." back to text
16. See Lewin, Lesbian Mothers; Ludtke, On Our Own; Thorne and Yalom, Rethinking the Family; Tyler May, Barren in the Promised Land; Weston, Families We Choose. back to text
17. See Collier and Yanagisako, "Introduction," for discussion of culturally imposed differences. Biological sex becomes socially significant through the constitution of gender in social institutions and through social organization (Butler, Bodies That Matter; Grosz, Volatile Bodies). Identities, cultural meanings, and social relationships all emanate from the structural aspects of gender (Brenner and Laslett, "Social Reproduction"). See Edwards et al., Technologies of Procreation, and Strathern, After Nature and Reproducing the Future, for discussions of how kinship is viewed as natural.
It is not simply the general public that is entrenched in thinking of gender and kinship as "natural," however. Social scientists, and specifically anthropologists, have a long history of confusion about the role of biology in kinship. See Franklin, Embodied Progress, for a cogent discussion of how anthropologists have conceptualized kinship historically by dichotomizing culture and biology and thus viewing kinship in all societies through the lens of Western notions about reproduction. back to text
18. See Franklin, Embodied Progress, 58; Weiner, "Reproductive Model," "Trobriand Kinship," and "Reassessing Reproduction." See also Franklin, Embodied Progress, 57-65, for a synopsis of Weiner's work. back to text
19. Strathern ("Regulation, Substitution," 172-73) observes that Euro-American ideas about kinship rest on multiple orderings of knowledge and that people move between orders of knowledge. Examples abound of the cultural importance of biology in American life, the most striking of which have been the eugenics movements. See Duster, Backdoor to Eugenics; Nelkin and Lindee,DNA Mystique; and May, Barren in the Promised Land. back to text
20. Martin, "Egg and the Sperm." back to text
21. Nelkin and Lindee, DNA Mystique. See also Duster, Backdoor to Eugenics. back to text
22. See Davis, "Surrogates and Outcast Mothers" and Women, Race, and Class; May, Barren in the Promised Land. back to text
23. Nelkin and Lindee, DNA Mystique, 2. Haraway (Modest_Witness) refers to the current preoccupation with genetics as "gene fetishism." back to text
24. Nelkin and Lindee, DNA Mystique, 58. back to text
25. Victor Turner, who developed notions of liminality and being "in between" in his work on ritual, observed in Ritual Process that liminal people are suspended in social space. See Becker, Disrupted Lives, 119-35, for discussion of living in limbo. Angela Davis ("Surrogates and Outcast Mothers") addresses how adulthood and womanhood are equated with motherhood. back to text
26. Victor Turner (Ritual Process) refers to the conclusion of the ritual process as "communitas" to signify the communal nature of ritual. back to text
27. Using a donor egg alleviates age-related worries about Down's syndrome because egg donors are invariably young (in their early twenties to early thirties). back to text
Chapter 4 Notes
1. In Barren in the Promised Land (140), Elaine Tyler May documents successive waves of pronatalism in the United States and their cultural roots. She calls the era in which most baby boomers were raised the "era of compulsory parenthood." back to text