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- Convenors:
-
Agnieszka Balcerzak
(LMU Munich)
Alexandra Desy (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Silvia De Zordo (University of Barcelona)
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- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
Reproductive mobility – whether for abortion, surrogacy, or ARTs – raises key questions about cross-border care. This panel explores how legal, medical, and cultural contexts impact reproductive experiences, and how mobility, activism, and support networks challenge dominant reproductive narratives.
Long Abstract:
In the 21st century, reproduction is increasingly shaped by globalization, migration, conflicts, and mobility. As individuals move across borders for reproductive healthcare, they encounter different legal, medical, and cultural landscapes, such as in Europe, the Americas, or Asia, where accessibility, legality, and mobility intersect with state control, identity, and power. This mobility reveals disparities in care access and shows how transnational politics and societal norms influence the flow of people, medications, and knowledge. This panel aims to “unwrite” dominant narratives by examining reproductive mobility's fluidity through geographical, cultural, and (non-)normative lenses.
We welcome submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following questions: How does reproductive mobility redefine borders, legal frameworks, and the right to autonomy? What role do activist movements play in advocating for reproductive rights across different legal and cultural contexts, and how do they confront stigmatization? How do support networks, from grassroots organizations to digital communities, aid individuals navigating cross-border reproductive journeys? How do such movements shape the lives of those seeking reproductive justice, and what alternative narratives do they create around reproduction, kinship, and body politics? What historical and contemporary examples illustrate the transformation of reproductive norms due to (im)mobility across time and space?
We invite papers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including anthropology, sociology, cultural and gender studies, medical humanities, and legal studies. We encourage theoretical, empirical, and case-study-based approaches, focusing on interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives. Papers may explore how reproductive (im)mobility shapes movements and redefines borders and legal frameworks.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
In Switzerland, married lesbian couples gained access to fertility clinics in 2022. Yet, some couples still prefer to travel abroad due to ART restrictions and discriminations. Drawing on interviews with lesbian couples who accessed ART abroad, we examine their cross-border healthcare trajectories.
Paper Abstract:
On 1 July 2022, marriage became legal for same-sex couples in Switzerland, allowing married lesbian couples to benefit from ART and the recognition of co-maternity from birth. Before that, lesbian couples had to resort to reproductive travel to access ART abroad, in conjunction with healthcare in Switzerland before and after insemination. However, despite the legal change, some technologies such as egg donation (reception of oocytes from partner) remain forbidden, even for married couples. In addition, in Switzerland, the donor is selected by physicians at fertility clinics, with the aim of matching the parents' phenotype, rather than by the parents themselves. Finally, childbirth and parenting culture in Switzerland remain strongly heteronormative and healthcare providers are ill-prepared to welcome lesbian couples, including in fertility clinics. In consequence, some couples seeking ART may still prefer to travel abroad
Based on medical fieldworks in Switzerland and in-depth interviews with Swiss lesbian couples who accessed ART abroad, this paper examines their experiences with reproductive travels. How did they choose the country and clinic for their insemination? How did they select their donor? We also analyse how ART regulations and the recent legal changes for lesbians’ reproduction in Switzerland shape intended mothers’ choices and paths to parenthood, intersecting with socio-economic norms and medical disparities in access to treatments.
Paper Short Abstract:
ARTs have received little scholarly attention in Africa, especially in the Maghreb. Based on our book "Voyager pour procréer au Maghreb. Expériences au sein d’une nouvelle industrie médicale", we present the results of the research program ‘Cross Border Reproductive Care in the Maghreb Region’.
Paper Abstract:
In 2017, the French President Emmanuel Macron used the terms ‘African demographic bomb’ for establishing a direct link between poverty levels and over fertility in Africa. In line with persisting neo-Malthusian logics, his discourse perpetuates erroneous representations of fertility, stigmatizing African women, and ignoring the consequences of slavery, colonialism, and infertility.
Infertility is still invisible in Africa, and ARTs have received little scholarly attention, especially in the Maghreb. Based on our book 'Voyager pour procréer au Maghreb. Expériences au sein d’une nouvelle industrie médicale', we present the results of the research ‘Cross Border Reproductive Care in the Maghreb Region’.
We discuss the ‘cumulative invisibilization’ of infertility in (North) Africa at different scales and the need to decolonize the knowledge produced in the Global North on this topic; the necessity to decentralize the gaze of international academic and health institutions when looking at this region; and the importance of destigmatizing the use of IVF in Africa. Our book shows how reproductive mobilities in the Maghreb, and more largely within francophone Africa, are the result of a complex interplay of relations of domination in which neo-colonial discourses, gendered social norms and socio-economic disparities intertwine. We also examine the emergence of the IVF industry in Tunisia, which has turned the country in a new ‘reprohub’ in francophone Africa. Finally, we analyze African infertile women’s agency and how the quest for a child is intrinsically linked to the quest for respectability. We argue that infertility and cross border reproductive care shall not be depoliticized.
Paper Short Abstract:
Based on 69 in-depth interviews conducted in France in 2022, we examine how digital tools reshape experiences and influence decision-making in CBRC journeys. Our research highlights both the empowering aspects and potential vulnerabilities created by easy access to global fertility market information.
Paper Abstract:
This communication is based on 69 in-depth interviews conducted in 2022 as part of the qualitative component of the Outside-ART survey, leaded at the National Institute for Demographic Studies (Ined, Paris). It explores the role of digital practices in cross-border reproductive care. The study examines how digital tools reshape the experiences of individuals seeking reproductive care abroad. It investigates the significance of digital resources in both the construction of parenthood and cross-border care journeys.
Firstly, our research highlights the role of digital practices during the development of parental projects and the implementation of ART treatments in cross-border care trajectories.
It then focuses on how these digital practices are integral to the globalized fertility market. The study reveals that easy access to information about international care options has dual effects. On one hand, it empowers individuals to make more active choices in their fertility journey. On the other hand, it increases vulnerability for those willing to sacrifice everything to achieve their parental goals.
This research contributes to understand how digital technologies are fully participating to cross-border reproductive care, offering both opportunities and challenges for individuals navigating this complex landscape.
Paper Short Abstract:
This study uses case study to show how homosexual single mothers in urban China imagine their reproduction and social relationship by using artificial reproductive technology. They want to reproduce care and intimacy in the process of realizing their reproductive decision.
Paper Abstract:
From the embodied or witnessed experience of taking care of the elderly, women found that reproducing intimacy and care through giving birth is quite significant and special in their life course, especially for homosexual women from other cities or other provinces. With the situation of lacking social support, they would like to “reproduce” a kid without a heterosexual partner by using artificial reproductive technology for themselves so that to reproduce their intimacy and care in life. In the process of decision making, they find ways to challenge the mainstream social norms and negotiate within their social network to realize their reproductive decision. Their strategies and logics in reproduction showed that homosexual single mothers used artificial reproductive technology to affirm their gender identity as well as to respond to the mainstream norms on reproduction and childrearing in urban China.
Paper Short Abstract:
Based on ethnographic research conducted in France and China, this paper offers a comparative analysis of the status of the surrogate from the perspective of intended parents in these two national contexts.
Paper Abstract:
Many people experiencing infertility ultimately opt for the pursuit of surrogacy, thereby externalizing part of the reproductive process, beyond borders and beyond norms. The role and position of the woman carrying the child for others in surrogacy practices can vary significantly depending on the context. She may be perceived as a complete stranger, a benevolent individual offering assistance, or even as a maternal figure.
The significance attached to pregnancy and childbirth in the formation of motherhood differs across various societies. The semantic uncertainties faced by intended parents when defining this woman reflect both the importance of her act for them and its local meaning. Furthermore, the surrogate enables the intended parents to repair a rift in their lives caused by the impossibility of becoming parents. This practice requires a significant investment of time, spanning several months, and places considerable demands on her physical and mental well-being.
Based on ethnographic research conducted in France and China, this paper offers a comparative analysis of the status of the surrogate from the perspective of intended parents in these two national contexts.
Paper Short Abstract:
13 American states have a total abortion ban in place since the fall of Roe v Wade in 2022. A further 4 have a 6-week gestational age limit. The story of how the abortion landscape has mobilised to increase access nationally include innovations and strategies that may be applied globally.
Paper Abstract:
Oral History methodology was used to interview and preserve the reflections, challenges and learning from organisational leaders, community activists, providers and researchers who have successfully increased access on a national level in the aftermath of the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade in 2022 (the "Dobbs ruling"). We will be able to discuss the implications of:
- Shield law provision of early medical abortion and menstrual regulation by post
- Telemedicine via asynchronous and synchronous consultation
- Accompaniment models and abortion doulas
- Family medical practitioner, midwife or nurse provision
- Pathway to over the counter early medical abortion provision.
The availability of audio recordings mean a multi-media presentation of findings will be available to accompany a discussion on what the American abortion landscape may mean for European and global abortion policy. The Dobbs ruling has made abortion a household topic for discussion. The effects of banning abortion on women and families have been amplified during a crucial election year.
In Europe, criminalisation and other barriers to access such as mandatory waiting periods and counselling requirements mean that the most vulnerable abortion seekers suffer the most and are more likely to need to travel internationally to receive abortion care. Most European countries have a 12 week gestational age limit. In the UK, abortion is still socially stigmatised and there isn't the same level or appetite for public debate in spite of a long-standing campaign for de-criminalisation of abortion by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Paper Short Abstract:
In this paper, we examine abortion stigmatisation in Malta and demonstrate how activists and people having abortions have been “unwriting” the dominant discourse of abortion as a stigmatising behaviour in the context of the cross-border circulation of pills and people seeking abortion care abroad.
Paper Abstract:
In this paper we investigate different kinds of mobilities – of people and pills – related to abortion seeking in Malta, where abortion is significantly legally restricted. Based on interviews with pro-abortion rights activists and Maltese people who had an abortion in the last three decades, and on our participation in pro-choice events, we illustrate how women and pregnant people overcome the legal and logistical barriers to accessing abortion in different historical and political moments. Women either travel to countries with legal abortion, or have a self-managed abortion through the help of abortion rights organisations, which provide them with information, support, and abortion pills. In this paper, we focus our analysis particularly on the issue of secrecy and abortion stigmatisation and demonstrate how activists and people having abortions in Malta have been “unwriting” and challenging the dominant discourse of abortion as a stigmatising behaviour. People having abortions may not consider abortion a crime or a sin, but often fear stigmatisation and legal prosecution and therefore tend to keep their abortion secret, which is difficult, because they have to travel abroad, or depend on pills shipped from other countries. Contrasting their forced silence, pro-choice organisations and the researchers collaborating with them hold public events, promote self-managed medication abortion, which allow people to have safe abortions without traveling abroad, and publish the anonymized stories of Maltese people having abortions. They thus contribute to “re-write” the history of abortion and destigmatize it in Malta, while fighting for women’s and pregnant people’s autonomy.
Paper Short Abstract:
Drawing on interviews with abortion activists from Europe and Polish women who use their support, this paper argues that collective practices of abortion provision produce new non-stigmatising norms around abortion and, in spite of their extra-legal aspect, foster a sense of ontological safety in the women who use their services.
Paper Abstract:
In Poland abortion is currently allowed only on two grounds: if pregnancy poses a threat to the life or health of a woman and if pregnancy is a result of a crime. The abortion laws in Poland, in spite of prohibiting abortion almost in all cases, neither penalise individuals who terminate their pregnancies through medication abortion nor people who have abortions in another country. The grey area created by the ambivalences of the Polish laws is used by abortion support groups that facilitate medical and clinic-based abortions for Polish women. Abortion support groups are grassroots, mutual-aid, feminist collectives that facilitate abortion pill provision in Poland and clinic-based abortions outside of Poland. Over the last decade more than a dozen of such groups have emerged across Europe as a response to the anti-abortion campaign led by the Catholic Church and the Polish far-right government. Currently, these groups facilitate a majority of abortions undergone by Polish women. This paper empirically draws on the interviews with activists from these groups based in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Austria and the UK, and stories of Polish women who had abortion with their support. I argue that abortion support groups through their collective practices of abortion provision produce new non-stigmatising norms around abortion and, in spite of their extra-legal aspect, foster a sense of ontological safety in the women who use their services.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper examines feminist-driven artworks challenging abortion in Portugal and Poland (2004–2021). It explores theoretical and historical frameworks, visual strategies to confront abortion stigma, and reflections about art's potential to reconfigure political and social realities, rather than merely mirror existing conditions.
Paper Abstract:
This paper analyses artistic creation informed by feminist debates aimed at challenging abortion stigma, connecting Portugal and Poland. Abortion stigma is a global phenomenon constructed through multiple layers of human interaction and shaped by local intersections of discourse, culture, gender archetypes, beliefs, and transnational institutions. Negative societal representations of abortion—often reinforced through legislation—perpetuate this stigma, discrediting women’s ability to make autonomous reproductive and sexual decisions. In this context, Portugal and Poland are European countries where abortion laws have been profoundly influenced by the Catholic Church, which opposes the practice.
However, their political trajectories differ: in Portugal, abortion upon request was decriminalised up to 10 weeks following a 2007 referendum, while in Poland, successive restrictions since 1990, after decades of decriminalisation under the People’s Republic of Poland, have resulted in near-total prohibition. This climate has mobilised artists and activists to defend the right to free, legal, and safe abortion, using art to express these concerns symbolically and tangibly.
A qualitative content analysis (2004–2021) explores the theoretical and historical frameworks surrounding abortion stigma and examines visual narratives, multidisciplinary formats, and strategies in selected artworks. These include artworks by Polish artists Agata Słowak, Agata Wieczorek, Beata Rojek and Sonia Sobiech, alongside Portuguese artists Carla Cruz, Catarina Carneiro de Sousa, Diana Policarpo and Paula Tavares. This study underscores the role of art in reshaping politics through its intersection with feminist transnational movements and active political participation in both countries.
Paper Short Abstract:
This circle, Interrupting the Stigma, held with Teresa Melo, highlights how stigma’s strength varies across countries, regardless of legal frameworks. It emphasises the importance of sharing first-hand and second-hand lived experiences, offering a space for transcultural storytelling while exploring broader societal and cultural questions linked to the conference theme.
Paper Abstract:
In various European countries, reproductive rights, particularly access to abortion, are increasingly restricted and often relegated to the private sphere. While abortion is a subject of opinions exchanges, there is not much space for a conversation what does an abortion stigma impose on us as members of society. We propose an abortion circle of personal narratives as a transdisciplinary format of exchange between art, academia and activism.
A circle is a conversation format where all voices are equal and heard. It provides a safe space for personal, relational, or social abortion and abortion stigma experiences to emerge, fostering tender listening without judgement. Through this format, we aim to encourage the academic community to reflect collectively on their positionalities, cultural contexts, and the intersections of politics and cultural practices.
The theme of this circle highlights how stigma’s strength can differ across countries regardless of their legal frameworks. Sharing both first-hand and second-hand lived experiences across diverse groups is essential, and this conference offers an ideal platform for a transcultural exchange of stories from conscious individuals. This circle also invites participants to explore the gendered dimensions of abortion experiences while collectively navigating the broader societal and cultural questions.
We would like to invite members of activist groups like Ciocia Basia, Ciocia Czesia or Ciocia Wienia, who provide a network of transnational abortion support for women based in Poland. They can share valuable insights on how abortion stigma is carried by women who travel across borders and cultures in seek of pregnancy termination.