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- Convenors:
-
Joanna Mishtal
(University of Central Florida)
Silvia De Zordo (University of Barcelona)
Giulia Zanini (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 03/006A
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel examines how mobilities and immobilities are experienced when people try to fulfil their "reproductive hopes", by seeking reproductive/sexual health services not available locally, including via self-care/telemedicine, and the impact of different temporalities on these (im-)mobilities.
Long Abstract:
This panel examines strategies people use to fulfil their reproductive needs when they seek reproductive and sexual healthcare not available locally, either by traveling far from where they live, including abroad, or via self-management of care. Seeking care away from one's locality entails the need to cross regional or international borders, contestations and circumvention of laws, need to escape stigma, or quest for services unavailable in one's country/region of origin. Mobilities in pursuit of healthcare, however, reveal great inequalities and barriers: some people, in fact, may be unable to travel due to legal documentation status, economic resources, or social supports necessary to make the journeys, and may thus seek alternatives, including self-care. When successful, these pursuits may be understood as reflections of "reproductive hopes" in that solutions may come from the movement to overcome barriers and awareness of one's rights to sexual/reproductive health and/or self-determination. From the perspective of longue durée, these reproductive hopes also draw attention to people's wisdom that emerge from lived experiences under restrictive laws and regimes. Given that sexual and reproductive health needs are often time-sensitive, we consider the impact of different temporalities - bodily time, societal and relational time, political/legal time - on people's (im-)mobilities and sexual and reproductive health experiences. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic allows us to examine telemedicine as a potentially transformative innovation perceived by many reproductive rights advocates as hopeful in reducing mobility needs, and thus impacting sexual and reproductive health experiences.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 July, 2022, -Leah Eades (University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the Republic of Ireland, I analyse how telemedicine abortion and the notion of "risk" emerge as resources for diverse actors to reanimate, reinforce and rework pre-existing power dynamics and tensions within current legislation and services.
Paper long abstract:
On 7th April 2020, the Republic of Ireland became the first country to announce that, in response to the Covid-19 emergency, it would temporarily be introducing telemedicine early medical abortion (EMA). Under the updated guidelines, women seeking EMAs would no longer be required to visit their GP in person and could instead avail of remote consultations. In this paper, I draw on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork to explore the politics of telemedicine EMA in Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic. I analyse how the specific spatialities and temporalities of telemedicine EMA emerge as a resource for diverse actors to reanimate – and potentially reinforce or rework – pre-existing power dynamics and tensions within the existing legislation and service delivery model. I begin by situating the current provision of telemedicine EMA in relation to Ireland’s recent history of illicit self-management under the 8th Amendment, and within ongoing state efforts to govern abortion through legal and biomedical means. I then outline the debates, anxieties and hopes that have emerged in response to telemedicine EMA’s introduction. In particular, I track the notion of “risk” and the different ways it is defined, assigned, and measured throughout these debates, and explore what this can tell us about the roles and responsibilities of the implicated actors and bodies. I conclude by looking to the future of telemedicine EMA in Ireland and elsewhere, and calling for further anthropological research in this rapidly moving area.
Agnieszka Balcerzak (LMU Munich)
Paper short abstract:
Poland has one of the most draconian abortion laws in Europe and a “conscience clause” allowing doctors to refuse to perform an abortion due to moral or religious convictions. The “Abortion Dream Team” stands against this ban by informing women how to obtain and self-manage medical abortion.
Paper long abstract:
Political struggles over conception, contraception, and pregnancy termination are longstanding in Poland. Contemporary Women’s Hell, under this title the leading Polish feminist organisation FEDERA published already in the mid-2000s its arousing report on the lack of safe abortion services in Poland. In early 2021, after a long “war on abortion” that has polarized the country, the near-total abortion ban came into effect. In Poland, abortion is now only permitted in situations of risk to the life or health of a pregnant woman, or if a pregnancy results from rape. In practice, however, it is almost impossible for those eligible for a legal abortion to obtain one. Every year thousands of women leave Poland to access abortion care in other European countries, while others import medical abortion pills. Furthermore, the ruling came as the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions made travel for abortion prohibitively difficult and costly. Since 2016, the feminist initiative “Abortion Dream Team” with its provocative motto “Abortion is OK” opposes the ban by organizing pro-choice demonstrations and workshops teaching women how to obtain and self-manage a medical abortion. Only over the last year, the rule-breaking collective and founding member of the international initiative “Abortion Without Borders”, have helped 34.000 women from Poland to fulfil their “abortion hopes” and overcome their reproductive immobility. Drawing on approaches to network theory, the politics of aesthetics, and protest mobilization, the presented paper investigates the logics and strategies of abortion access in Poland by taking the nexus of politics, religion, and feminist activism into account.
Silvia De Zordo (University of Barcelona) Giulia Zanini (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) Joanna Mishtal (University of Central Florida)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper we explore the experiences of pregnant people who travelled abroad for abortion care due to gestational age limits, drawing on findings from a five-year European research project, and we reflect upon the clash between legal/medical pregnancy time, bodily time, and social time.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, we examine how women and pregnant people crossing national borders to access abortion care from countries where abortion is legal experience the gestational age (GA) limits established by the laws in their countries of residence. First, we illustrate the fragmented landscape of European legislations, which establish different time limits for abortion on broad grounds, or on request, interpreted in different ways by the medical authorities and abortion providers of each country. Then, drawing on findings from a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council and carried out in England, Netherlands, and Spain (ERC BAR2LEGAB project), we explore the experiences of pregnant people who have travelled abroad to seek abortion care because they had exceeded GA limits. In particular, we reflect upon: 1) the clash between legal/medical pregnancy time, bodily time, and social time; 2) the impact of GA limits on participants' everyday time, as well as on the time (often delayed) of abortion care. We argue that GA limits express the legislators' moral concerns for the fetus' "life" and do not take into account how bodily time and social time shape life and pregnancy time in different and complex ways. Those who need an abortion beyond time restrictions thus may have to travel abroad, which exposes them to further challenges and health risks, and, therefore, deepens existing social and gender inequalities.
Mariam Darchiashvili (Ilia State University)
Paper short abstract:
The paper argues that surrogacy negotiations are the assemblage of formal and informal. The shortness of the Georgian surrogacy law, lack of official regulations and ubiquity of surrogacy agency regulations create spaces of informalities for surrogacy actors to pursue their reproductive objectives.
Paper long abstract:
With its surrogacy-friendly legislation, cheap labor force, and laissez-faire approach to healthcare, Georgia has become one of the surrogacy centers worldwide. Commercial surrogacy is legal based on the short Article N143 in the Law of Georgia on Health Care. The law clarifies that intended parents are considered legal parents, and the surrogate or the donor does not have any rights and obligations towards a child. Surrogacy agencies and clinics have a freedom of managing the field with their own regulations: contracts, internal policies and unwritten rules. The shortness of the Georgian surrogacy law, lack of official regulations and ubiquity of surrogacy agency regulations create spaces of informalities for surrogacy actors to pursue their reproductive objectives.
In this paper, I am interested in exploring international surrogacy negotiations with the concept of informality. I rely on Helmke and Levitsky’s (2004) definition of informality as socially shared rules created outside of officially sanctioned channels. I want to emphasize the complementary (Hart 2005) characteristics of informality, go beyond opposing formal with informal, and argue about the assemblage of this two. I want to elaborate on the embeddedness of informality on macro and micro levels, informal practices of state actors or the representative of formal agencies, and intended parents and surrogates.
The research is a part of a wider anthropological research project, 'Surrogacy as a Networked Phenomenon: the study of key actors and their interrelations' (2020-2023).
Paro Mishra (Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi)
Paper short abstract:
Using the idea of datafied body projects, this paper explores women’s self-management of reproductive health in India during covid through femtech mobile applications to examine the consequences of pandemic biopolitics, immobility and digital self-tracking on their reproductive journeys.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the personal informatic practice of India women using self-tracking femtech to manage their sexual and reproductive health during covid and beyond. The Indian state mandated technologies of pandemic control like lockdown, quarantine, isolation and social distancing, adopted in the name of ‘de-emergence of disease’, severely restricted women’s access to healthcare. This was coupled with a significant increase in adoption of telemedicine, remote healthcare and app-based health monitoring during that time. Based on data collected from a large survey and qualitative interviews conducted with women using femtech applications, this paper examines femtech apps as ‘datafied body projects’. It examines how Indian women used mobile phone applications to manage their sexual and reproductive health and what are the consequences of this datafication on their reproductive body. It shows that the pandemic biopolitics and management of population intersected in complex ways with immobility, remote healthcare, digital self-tracking and self-management of health to have varied consequences- ranging from beneficial to risky- on women’s reproductive journeys and impacted their understanding of the reproductive body.