Paper short abstract:

This paper will address the uncertainties of reproduction amongst married couples in Germany. Drawing on ethnographic examples of German couples that employ surrogates in Ukraine, the paper will demonstrate the ways in which biologically-oriented bodily disorders present prerequisites for the reinventing of social order.

Paper long abstract:

For the last decade, Eastern Europe has often become a last bastion of hope for German couples that want to have children, but are unable to do so the natural way. In Ukraine, both extra-corporal insemination and surrogacy services are cheaper than in many other countries and, on the contrary to Germany, they are considered legal in Ukraine as well. Hence, many German couples, with the help of lawyers and non-government related agencies in both countries, have been able to make their dreams of having their own biological children come true, in spite of their personal traumatic experiences of reproductive ruptures. Drawing on ethnographic examples that illustrate the differences of 'having a child' and 'giving birth to a child', I will explore the ways in which biological and non-biological constituents correlate with that distinction. By taking the distinctive understandings of, and meanings for, being biological parents and surrogates into account, I will explore the unsettling biological, social, economic and cross-cultural realms comprised within those reproductive uncertainties, their boundaries and related intersubjectivities. My paper will argue that both biological and non-biological constituents inherent in those reproductive technologies, procedures and its related processes shift from understandings of bodily disorders to the reinventing of social order across national boundaries.