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- Convenors:
-
Silvia De Zordo
(University of Barcelona)
Joanna Mishtal (University of Central Florida)
Giulia Zanini (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- Horsal 8 (D8)
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 15 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Stockholm
Short Abstract:
This panel examines contemporary reproductive mobilities, focusing on medical travels within, from or to Europe. Selected papers discuss reproductive health travels for assisted reproduction, abortion, sterilisation and other reproductive choices, which may require travel to seek medical assistance.
Long Abstract:
Medical travels are at the centre of contemporary political and academic debates because of the inequalities they entail, make evident, and produce as well as of the new subjectivities, biosocial identities, and transnational health and economic arrangements they make possible. National and international policies shape healthcare provision in different locations, stratifying access and cost of services. Public health cuts due to neoliberal policies throughout Europe further fuel travel across borders in pursuit of better healthcare.
Reproduction is at the centre of these medical mobilities. Reproductive health travel to access assisted reproductive technologies (ART) due to restrictions or accessibility have increased over the last decades, attracting scholarly attention. Simultaneously, other reproductive choices, such as abortion and sterilisation care, may also require travel to seek medical assistance, both within and between countries.
This panel examines reproductive mobilities (of people, techniques and discourses) that characterise contemporary societies and focuses particularly on medical travels within, from or to Europe. Since reproductive aims and experiences of those who travel to seek reproductive care may vary, this panel will explore the range of challenges, strategies, experiences, and policies that such mobilities entail.
We encourage paper proposals that examine the relationship between national and transnational reproductive health and rights regulations, and their impact on medical travels; the challenges of reproductive mobile trajectories, in particular in light of availability (or lack of) public or private services; diversity of individuals' decisions concerning travel; practicalities of reproductive medical travels in different contexts; and policy dynamics that shape medical mobilities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 15 August, 2018, -Paper short abstract:
In many European countries, despite relatively abortion laws, women face a number of barriers to abortion that can lead them to travel across borders in pursuit of abortion care. This paper presents preliminary results from a 5-year study about women's experiences seeking abortion care abroad.
Paper long abstract:
In many European countries, despite relatively abortion laws, women face legal, social and procedural barriers to abortion. These barriers, which highlight deep gender and social inequalities in a number of countries, can lead women to travel across borders in pursuit of abortion care. At the same time, they produce new subjectivities and social networks that support and make these reproductive health travels possible.
Existing data suggests that cross-country travel to access abortion care is reality for a number of European women from countries with relatively liberal abortion laws and, yet, few studies have attempted to describe and analyse this unique experience. Existing literature focuses on women travelling from countries with very restrictive abortion laws. Women who travel from countries with relatively liberal abortion laws face unique barriers, which may play a role in their decision-making processes, affect their choices, and influence their abortion experience.
This paper aims to address this under-researched phenomenon by presenting the preliminary results of an ongoing 5-year study on abortion travel across European countries. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data collected mainly in the UK and in the Netherlands with women seeking abortion care across borders, we will describe the challenges, strategies, and experiences associated with travel to seek abortion care. In particular, this paper will explore the reasons why women from European countries with relatively liberal abortion laws decide to travel abroad, their experiences with travelling, and their opinions on European abortion laws and policies.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the main barriers to abortion care that women face in Spain and women's experiences travelling across regions to seek abortion care, based on the preliminary results of an innovative, 5-year, mixed-method research study, funded by the European Research Council.
Paper long abstract:
In Spain abortion is a woman's right and a NHS-funded healthcare service, according to the 2010 law on sexual and reproductive health. However, for a number of reasons, inequalities in access to abortion care exist among women in Spain, particularly according to their region of residence. As a result, a substantial number of women travel each year across regions for abortion care or abortion related procedures. Travelling requires the added burden of making practical arrangements, requiring money and time, adding additional barriers to abortion services and potentially delaying the procedure.
This paper explores the main barriers to abortion care that women face in Spain and women's experiences travelling across regions to seek abortion care, based on the preliminary results of an innovative, 5-year, mixed-method research study, funded by the European Research Council.
This paper will discuss the abortion law and the complex organization of abortion provision in Spain, focussing on the main legal, procedural and social barriers to access in different regions. We will then examine women's experiences with such barriers and with abortion-related travels across regions, as well as their knowledge of the law and of the services that promote and support reproductive rights and health in Spain.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the reproductive medical mobility of Montenegrin women to Serbia. Medical institutions in Serbia offer geographical closeness, comfortable familiarity, and, most importantly, privacy to women from Montenegro.
Paper long abstract:
Based on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork (from June 2017 to March 2018) in the central and northern part of Montenegro, I suggest that women from Montenegro employ reproductive medical strategies that involve traveling to neighbouring Serbia in order to perform prenatal testing (CVC, Cell-free foetal DNA testing) and abortion.
Even though women in Montenegro have access both to public and private medical institutions to preform prenatal testing and abortion and both countries share similar policies regarding prenatal testing (that is, genetic testing to learn the sex of the foetus is prohibited) and abortion (without restriction), women from Montenegro choose to travel to Serbia.
Several factors fuel the cross-border reproductive mobility from Montenegro to Serbia. First, reproductive decisions, like most matters regarding family, are seen as private issues in Montenegro. By traveling to Serbia to perform prenatal testing and/or abortion, women secure privacy and avoid gossip in the society around them and their families in Montenegro. Second, the two countries have historical ties and share a common religious, language and cultural background. Therefore, I suggest, on the one hand, medical institutions in Serbia offer geographical closeness and comfortable familiarity, and on the other hand - the needed privacy and emotional security.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the complex movements of people and gametes that attribute to the international mobility in Georgia's market of assisted reproduction, with a special focus on the reproductive imaginaries and aspirations of actors in a medical system that is perceived as insufficiently regulated.
Paper long abstract:
Potentially, childless couples in Georgia can chose from a multitude of options in assisted reproduction. The legal framework from 1997 allows for a wide range of fertility treatments, including gamete donation and commercial gestational surrogacy, with only a minimum of limitations. While some doctors have already expressed their frustration with insufficient regulation, for most clinics and donation centres this situation is profitable.
Foreign childless couples seem to appreciate the straightforwardness of the Georgian system, and account for a large percentage of patients. However, not only foreigners coming to Georgia contribute to the medical mobility. Many Georgian childless couples are on the move, too - between doctors, clinics, and countries. The perceived insecurity in a medical system that is seen as unregulated, non-transparent or even 'backward' leads to a high level of mistrust towards doctors in the field of assisted reproductive technologies. Though more expensive, chances for successful treatment are considered to be higher abroad. Georgian doctors, on the other hand, adorn themselves with foreign education and their clinics with international names. At the same time, not only people travel: In order to prevent 'sinful' future relationships between unknowingly related spouses, gametes are imported from abroad. For the same reasons, others prefer local donors, whose ancestry can be disclosed.
This paper unravels the complex mobilities of people and gametes into, out of and within Georgia's market of assisted reproduction from the perspective of Georgian patients, with a special focus on the imaginaries and aspirations behind them.