Systematic inequalities in medically assisted reproduction in Hungary – the patients’ perspective (original) (raw)
Related papers
Intersections
In recent years, the issue of reproduction has been increasingly thematized in Hungarian political discourse. This has not only occurred at the discursive level, but the government has also introduced new policies regarding reproduction and family life, thus new regulations have been introduced concerning the medical practice of IVF and other ART which have affected practices associated with infertility. The article aims to discuss the ways that policies and discourses shape the views of women struggling with infertility. The medical and political discourse seems to emphasize the responsibility of women in relation to fertility-related issues, despite the fact that the problem also affects men. Furthermore, with the increased surveillance of women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment, the importance of the latter’s self-reflexivity, discipline, and responsibility is emphasized. To discuss these issues, the article uses a multi-method approach. The primary data source is in-dep...
The doctoral dissertation is focusing on the biographical disruptions and lived experiences of female patients using medically assisted reproductive technologies in Hungary. In general, the aim of the thesis research is to explore patients’ constructed narratives about infertility and reproduction technologies used in treatment. Further goal is to understand the role of patients’ accumulated knowledge in the form of ‘lay expertise’ has affected interactions with medical professionals and their perceptions of the doctor-patient relationship. Moreover, the inquiry aspired to uncover how the gendered reproductive responsibility of pronatalist Hungary influence participating women’s actualities and experiences. Four research questions were formulated for the investigation, the main findings detailed in the last section of the abstract. The thesis draws on the combination of four distinct theoretical fields. The four approaches the thesis gains inspiration from are the following: (1) sci...
Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala, 2020
Infertility is defi ned as the inability of a couple to conceive a child after 12 months of regular and unprotected sexual intercourse or after 6 months, in case of women who are over 35 years. Currently, assisted human reproductive techniques (ART) can help infertility couples worldwide and promise unquestionable benefi ts to humanity. The study proposes an assessment of problems that couples with fertility issues are facing in Romania using a special questionnaire composed of 8 segments and 65 items. The questionnaire was completed by 860 women who benefi ted from ART in diff erent fertility clinics nationwide. By analyzing the results, we identifed the socio-economical and legal concerns that occured when
Polish Women Experiencing Infertility in the face of Legal and Ethical Dilemmas – A research report
Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis Studia Psychologica, 2017
The aim of the conducted studies was to learn about the opinions of women suffering from infertility regarding the most controversial issues connected with assisted reproduction, which are still being publicly discussed in Poland, despite the Act from 2015 regulating these issues. The studies compared opinions of women in different stages of experiencing infertility. The studied group comprised of 884 women: undergoing treatment, raising a child (born as a result of treatment or adopted), undergoing adoption procedures and those who decided to remain childless. The Attitudes Towards Bioethical Problems of Infertility Scale was an original tool used in the studies. Polish women have liberal views on most ethically controversial issues. The tested subjects had conservative views on the issue of IVF availability for homosexual couples (over 60% of subjects had conservative views) and IVF availability for unmarried couples (over 40% of subjects had conservative views). A comparison of opinions regarding the bioethical dilemmas of women on different stages of infertility revealed some interesting and statistically significant results (p < .001). Techniques where the partner's cells are used were widely accepted (over 80%), contrary to techniques where a donor's cells are used (accepted by approx. 40% of the subjects). Significant information concerning bioethical dilemmas on infertility treatment can be used to predict decisions concerning the course of infertility treatment. The gathered opinions constitute an important voice in the public debate on legal regulations in the area of bioethical issues connected with assisted reproduction.
Receiving infertility treatment is also a life event that may result in significant emotional distress, thus it is equally imperative to concentrate not only on how patients experience their own involuntary childlessness, but how they perceive their successful or unsuccessful treatments. This paper investigates the everyday life experiences of infertile women who have decided to seek medical treatments which employ assisted reproductive technologies, based on a systematic and in-depth qualitative analysis of topic related on-line discussion group messages. Central focus is on how the participants make sense of their conditions and treatments, what questions they find worthy of discussing and how they communicate among their own internet community. The research investigated the constructions, tones, themes, portrayed topics and problems of the individual contributors, whilst not neglecting the dynamics of the online group. This unique research design permitted studying the discourse of the participants in a natural, non-controlled environment, where the presence of the researcher had no influence on the results. Main findings suggest the analyzed texts hold a combination of a 'rhetoric of sorrow' portraying disappointment, and a 'rhetoric of hope', latter vocalizing their belief in the technological advancement and their unquestionable and altruistic support of one another.
Gendernyi Zhurnal Ya, vol 3 (34): 33-36.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have been available in Poland since mid-1980s, and as of today there are over 40 clinics (both private and public), which offer a wide range of treatment methods. At the same time, no countryspecific legislation has been implemented, and Polish authorities have not ratified the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine from 1997. In the face of demographic crisis, and opinion polls showing majority support for the state sponsored IVF program, the ruling Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) introduced a regulation issued by the Minister of Health. On the 1st of June 2013 the government introduced a three-year plan of state-funded IVF treatments for infertile people, which is about to cover partly the costs for 15.000 heterosexual couples (married or not) in total. 1 This decision was applauded by the people affected by infertility, but did not fill the legal vacuum concerning the field of biotechnologies in general.
2015
Assisted Reproductive Technology techniques (ART) have been raising psychological controversies since the beginning, from contesting the procedure itself to challenging the various situations and ways in which ART could be performed. For many of those issues the verdict is mainly influenced by cultural, religious and political differences amongst countries. It is unlikely to reach a consensus on these matters in the near future. At the same time, there are several ethical challenges concerning the individual medical management of the very heterogeneous population of patients referred to in vitro fertilization (IVF)/ART which could be easier brought to a common point of view of the specialists involved in ART. Practically, about one in 5-6 child-seeking couples confronts primary or secondary fertility issues. Comparing the level of secondary infertility (frequently reproductive ageing and gynecological disorders related) in Romania (and Eastern European countries) versus high income ...
Games of Life. Czech Reproductive Medicine. Sociological Perspectives
The Games of Life analyses current reproductive medicine in the Czech Republic. It targets biomedicine, as a concrete manifestation of modern society’s normalization of the Western approach to human health and illness by focusing on three specific fields: childbirth, assisted reproduction, and embryo manipulation. All three themes are approached with the concept of biopower as a form of governance and administration of modern populations (Foucault 1999). The objective of the book is to provide a critical sociological analysis of reproductive medicine, as one of the key poles in the current form of biopower (Rabinow, Rose 2003, 2006). The reason for our focus on this area is the relationship between reproductive medicine in the Czech Republic and technology, the commodification of health and illness, and the normative character of reproductive medicine with its consequences in the broader social context. The authors start by filling the gap in critical reflection and thelack of debate of these issues in the Czech professional context, and by understanding the mechanisms reproducing the hegemony of a biomedical approach to human reproduction beyond national borders. They do so in the Games of Life by providing specific fieldwork data from the Czech context. They focus their empirical analysis on the issues of everyday practice in reproductive medicine, such as establishing trust in the process, or on topics channelling and polarizing both professional and public discussions on transforming the practices of Czech hospital birth, or the debate on the status of the embryo as a bio-object. These particular issues have been studied to answer the research questions: How are the borders between normality/legitimacy in the definitions of health and illness negotiated within three specialized fields of reproductive medicine? In what way is trust established within the system of modern reproductive medicine? How are the categories of status, gender, and ethnicity introduced into this process? The book analytically situates Czech reproductive biomedicine within a broader critical approach to biosociality manifested in profound changes in contemporary societies.
Infertility is an important topic to bring forth, since it elicits multiple themes and cultural values having to do with the path take, with gender roles and definitions of femininity and masculinity, as well as moral and legal issues. 'IVF is a shifting cultural artifact, as imbricated as any other in contemporary discourses and the struggles they articulate.' [1] Reproduction is turning into a zone where gender, sexuality, economic development, public and private family life and public policies, biotechnology and the ethical dilemmas it causes, interact in a very delicate and specific way. For a long time in most public discussions about the ethical issues of IVF, only the status of the embryo seems to have accounted. Most opponents of ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies) and embryonic stem cell technologies base their arguments on the twin assertions that the embryo is either a human being or a potential human being, and that it is wrong to destroy a human being or po...
The Social Construction of Infertility
Sociology Compass, 2011
Health and illness are not objective states but socially constructed categories. We focus here on infertility, a phenomenon that has shifted from being seen as a private problem of couples to being seen as a medical condition. Studying infertility provides an ideal vantage point from which to study such features of health care as inter-societal and cross-cultural disparities in health care, the relationship between identity and health, gender roles, and social and cultural variations in the process of medicalization. Infertility is stratified, both globally and within Western societies. Access to care is extremely limited for many women in developing societies and also for marginalized women in some highly industrialized societies. We also discuss the ways in which responses to infertility are influenced by the process of self-definition. The experience of infertility is profoundly shaped by varying degrees of pronatalism and patriarchy. In advanced industrial societies, where voluntary childfree status is acknowledged, many women experience infertility as a "secret stigma"; in other cultures, where motherhood is normative for all women, infertility may be impossible to hide. In the West, acceptance of the medical model is virtually hegemonic, but in other societies medical interpretations of infertility coexist with traditional interpretations.