Abstract

SILVA, Susana  and  MACHADO, Helena. The governance of appropriate patients in access to medically assisted proceation in Portugal. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2010, n.62, pp.81-96. ISSN 0873-6529.

This text seeks to problematise the criteria that delimit a man and/or woman’s ability to take advantage of medically assisted proceation in Portugal; it also seeks to reflect on the possibility that these elements boost the (re)production of inequalities in access to reproductive health. The empirical basis of this discussion is an analysis of the legal/political and medical governance of appropriate patients, based on interviews with jurists and medical doctors. It is concluded that the main restrictions on access to these technologies are associated with a hierarchical construction of the political and social priorities that reflects the dominant ideological expectations and social relations, in particular regarding the following aspects: the privatisation and individualisation of reproductive health; the cultural imposition of heterosexuality; and the expansion in the fame of the effectiveness of techno-medicine.

Keywords : medically assisted procreation; appropriate patients; unequal access; reproductive health.

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