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    Certain Mothers Uncertain Fathers Placin

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    arescolee

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    REASSEMBLING MOTHERHOOD PROCREATION AND CARE IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD EDITED BY YASMINE ERGAS, JANE JENSON, AND SONYA MICHEL wy Columbia University Press New York CERTAIN MOTHERS, UNCERTAIN FATHERS Placing Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Historical Perspective NARA MILANICH n their foundational volume on the global politics of reproduction, | Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp (1995) asked, “What's new about the new reproductive technologies?” In the succeeding two decades, the burgeoning interdisciplinary scholarship on assisted reproductive tech- nologies (ARTs) seems to have answered: just about everything. A recur- ring but generally unexamined refrain is that the advent of assisted reproduction heralded a discrete rupture in patterns of human repro- duction and in the social meanings, relationships, and identities attached to it. In vitro fertilization, surrogacy, artificial insemination, and other Practices “challenge our most established ideas about motherhood, pater- nity, biological inheritance, the integrity of the family, and the ‘natural- ness’ of birth itself” (Shore et al. 1992, 295), producing a “transformation of the boundaries of family” (Satz 2007, 523). Such changes are said to be destabilizing, to have “shaken the unshakable” (Stumpf 1986, 187), and to have unsettled roles and identities once assumed to be transparent, self- evident, and stable. New technologies are thus “deconstructive in intro- ducing ambiguity and uncertainty into kin relationships, including the fundamental categories of motherhood and fatherhood” (de Parseval and Collard 2007, cited in Inhorn and Birenbaum-Carmeli 2008, 182). One gleans from the literature the sense of a fixed and unambiguous “ef” and a rave, new afer” with ARTS 38 the crt vata ‘between them ‘On one level this naratve makes sense, The technoscientic yp. city of ART aswell asthe creative social and legal adaptations oy reformolations they have engendered seem indisputable. But what, rather than faring thee emergence as rupture, we considered ART, part of a loger-unning and dynamic process in which law, scene technology. culture, eligon the state, and social practice have shapes and reshaped constructions of kinship and identity, maternity and paternity? For, as dhe ART literature itself shows so well these areal malleable socal categories, subject to profound reinterpretation and tesignifiation within changing political and technological contexts, ‘Whatif the, we view ARTS as not the irs, but merely the ates, ror ulation of categories and identities that derive from and shape reproduction? This chapter attempts to do tha, exploring enduring tensions and synergies among socal, gal, and scientific constructions of parentage Such ahistorical exercise helps to place contemporary debates about who counts asa father or mother ina broader perspective showing that ‘ambiguity and contestation long predate the emergence of these new technologies. More specially, even as one signal contribution of the Scholarship on ARTS sto question file assumptions about the social and the biologal the narrative of rupture tends to refy unwittingly ot only the past as i tothe present but also the binaries of certainty uncertainty and ambigutylanambiguty that signify « reproductive “hefore” and “after” Invoked to make a point about the unprecedented novelty and disruptive potential of ARTS, notions of ambiguity/certainty themselves go unrecognized a social and legal constructs. Invocation of past and present, certainty and uncertaimty are com: ‘mon not only inthe ART lit ture but also in asessments of another domain of technoscientific practice said to have revolutionized reproductive rues and identities: DNA paternity testing, But biological paternity has historically been constructed, in binary opposition t0 ‘maternity a intrinsically uncertain, Ths, ARTs have rendered mater rity ambiguous, genetic parentage testing has done precisely the oppo. site: made knowable that which had previously seemed inscrutable. As ‘one scientist on the cusp ofthe DNA revolution declared, “Motherhood. ways bee bieloge cetainy; now fatherhood wil be wel ts gs, 2537). And as with ARTS, ths development ends to be {sha hn ers i ode to highlight te unprecedented nov fa city ener ane lenny the ae ol rb fd ey eri isfinally beng erated fay an Shap, enter and Pore 192.2) untposing DNA testing with ARTs highlights how notion of cr int and uncertainty help to define maternity and paternity and to Stine them in opposition to one another. Indeed the relationship perween these 10 Fouhly contemporaneous teehee devel Pets as been expressed in precely these term pethaps most vocatively by feminist scholar cence Chars Thompuon 005, 68, Miho has suggested "The new reproductive technalogies «made Tilo! motherhood uncertain just st DNA testing was begining to Foe the notoriously uncertain ats of paternity more certain” Inher Mons, notions of maternal certaty are constructed against comple Tentary notions of paternal ambiguity andthe past is posed again the Trev 0 argue that recent developments fn reproductive and genetic ence haven fet reversed the signs rendering maternity ambiguous fd pteraty certain. ‘Notions of certaintyfuncetanty have @ remarkably long histories genealogy in the domain of what scholars have refereed to a¢ Eo: “erica isi (Schneider 964 Strathern 1992), and inde in Western legit and social thought more generally! then sth beet historical appralsal of these ideas inlaw ad culture and go on to survey various sori scenarios that demonstrate how socal legal ordering po duces them. then ases the impt, Dinning in the ely twentieth century, of new scientific technologies on notions of parentage, with 3 focus on ealy paternity testing argue hat, even as they promised reed the incontrovertible trath of paternity, ne technologies arguably rendered paternal identity more ambiguous than ever. FARTS and DNA totinghave unsettled older social and lea eategorts, as many scholars ave noted, the categories they unsettled are themselves the produc of catlie interactions between la, tate polices, social practices, and ‘enifi developments. Given its length, thisesay can only ketch this evidence in the broadest of strokes; sil, restoring some texture and ‘peifty to history before ARTs, even anecdotally allows us to address ‘anew Happ ana Ginsburg ye "What bs ew alt he new repro tive tectnhaglent” CERTAIN MOTHERS, UNCERTAIN FATHERS: A BRIEF HISTORY ‘The notion of iological mateenity as certain and biologie paternity ay wertaln isa longstanding trp of Western law anid culture, Resngn lave for example, hela "mater re cert es” (he meter Is abvayy tain), because the fact of maternity could be clearly and unambigu. ‘ously attributed atthe moment of a chikl's beth, Notions of maternal certainty were In (urn constructed against complementary notions of paternity as ambiguous “Pater semper incertus es.” heh! the aecnnpa faying Roman dlctui: the father is intrinsically uncertain, because ture had dravn an “impenetrable veil over the fact of paternity (chs 2008, 52)’ Hut Roman law then went on to establish a qualifying prin ple: "pater est quem nuptiae d monstrant” the father is be whom mae age Indicates); that is, the husband of the mother is always. by law the father of her children. If marriage renders paternity certain, the cork lary, of course, is that the father neces ily remains uncertain the ‘ease of unmarried mothers. That is, paternity 1 ‘marriage, even as iis effaced outside oft, This cluster of legal principles concerning certain maternity, uncer tain paternity, and the so-called presumption of marital legitimacy ta verses a variety of legal traditions ane religous and secular, Western and “non-Western.” Present in Catholic canon law and Jewish and Islamic legal traditions, they also ate found in Anglo- Anse: can law andl the civil law of continental Europe as wel sin Latin Ames: can and some Middle Eastern legal systems. While undergoing eviet ‘modifications in emphasis and interpretation over time (some of which are outlined below), today these tenets continue to exercise considerale weight across diverse legal jurisdictions, As one author has suggest ‘marital legitiniaey, and the accompanying prineiple of paternal uncer tainty outside marriage, is “as close to a cultural universal in law a8 set” (Stolzenbeng 2007, 345). rade “knowable” by fiekd of own tage have elaborated on the principles of maternal certenty and pater fal uncertainty and theonined abot the sigfcance sl these seringhy ‘suc Meas are Ju the province of law 1p natural ac fo the origin of human socket, ppc development cal tural difference, and gender Inequality. tn the wit nineteenth century, diverse strains of vocal theory attributed crt sgniicance to he Lact of paternal unknowablly. Bvohtlonary accounts of he origins of human civilization from Eviedeich Knges to Lewis Henry Morgan, for example, posted a primordial stage of frihal promiscuity, uncertain paternal origins, and matrilineal descent, Joann Hachotens acon of the defeat of "mother tight”—the early sage of human wxlety character ‘aed by primitive matearchy-hingal on the dicovery that paterity ‘ould be made certain through monogamous marvage ater, Sigmund Freul discussed the psychic impact of chikrenis dawning knowledge of ‘human procreation and, in particular their eealiation of thelr oven crnty, i "Parnlly Romances (103), By the 1930s, anthropologist suchas Bronislaw Malinawsh ha embarked ona heated Aeate about whether contemporary “savages” unnerstond the concept I paternity (Allen 199; Coward 1983 Dany 1986) More recently, sociobologists and primatologsts have dwell on how pater nal indeterminacy shapes selection strategies among male and female Primates. And even as they espouse a very diferent intellectual and political project, some strains of what has been labeled essentialist fen hism have beguo with a cemarkably similar premise, arguing thatthe fact of uncertain paternity lies atthe heat of patraechy and it insti tions (OBrien 198). Such widely held and deeply rooted convictions about the “natural facts” of procreation frm the bickd+op for contemporary assessments tof reproductive technologies Ina word, what is new about these new technologies is that they appear to have utterly revolutionized these acts, or the first time in bun of physiolog story, sclence has rendered maternity ambiguous, even as paternity has become certain and knowable, The naturalness of these facts constitutes the base premise against which to asses the transformations wrought by reproductive technologies, rom ARTs wo paternity testing. ‘Bt are they in fact, natural ict? suggest thatthe principles of mater: nal certainty and paternal uncertainty, enshrined inlaw and elaborated =, sn soil theory, st uncomfortably with the historic record of cay protic. The rol of legal icions—that i, presumption crested by causes socially and ely convenient to assume they ae truer a widely acknowledged dimension ofthe eal architecture of ute ‘nd wil return to this se. ist however, [want SURgE es con ‘sentional that here ae equally powerfl and endaring, utes rg ied el tons at work inthis construction of materi ‘The tum of certain maternity implies, rst 2 natura physi, genet ase for maternal dey. Second, implies ha the fact this natal elationship is unambiguous ove the course ofa mother orchid’ ietime and beyond, the Heting moment of ith imparts ‘ear and indelible lnk between a parturient and her progeny, dese cventual physical or social separation. A ental pursuit of exer gn ‘rations of anthropological ingury was the stay of "non-Westers societies whose Kinship systems or child-rearing practices operated according to logic ther than this physio biogenetc One. But we ‘eed venture no furter than Euro-American history to encounters plethors of soci scenarios in which this logic was normative rather than desriptiv. I fact, the notion of maternal certainty xe by and at birth seems utterly t odds with wie arayof bild-earing, fm fal and labor practices in diverse Euro-American socetles histor cally societies, ofcourse, goterned by lea ystems that nevertbeles embraced the arial ge of materoal cert (nd paternal uncer tainty These cade the widesped practi of child abandonment, which ats fom Roman history and stretches note nineteenth entry he ubigity of wet nursing and osterage arrangements Sussman 1982} and ther cual practices of child circulation, placement, osterage, doy tion labor and sale (Gager 1996 dos Guimardes Si 1995) In diferent ways all of hese practises belied a fixed, sable or singular maternal identity, Sigoficanl, these were not exceptional practices that existed an the _margs of ew or soil custom, Rather, in particular tines and plises they Became widespread ualize, and instttonalized mechanisms for unmoorig children from thei atl Westies and, when they si ve, ffectig the transfert aherntive kina caretaker, Examples Include ofa, the donation of child a monastery, a practice that nay be as ol as Christianity if (Boswell 1998, and is subsequent | ncaraton, the ritualied practice of vig chien onthe steps cbarch But the oni “ounding wheel” perhaps the mos weed example ofthe instttonaied ease of ey Tht onrjtion ‘Slowed a fate commited oan erphonage hie reserving the ‘nonymity of Hs nal Kin and, expec it mather—sometines in ‘onrevention oftheir dese to enor rin known fo the ck Esotomicly underwriten and Welly sanctioned by bth sate and igus authorities (special the Catholic Church) fondling wes date from the hitenth century and fanctoned in Earope unt ‘ell ino the nineteenth century. a Latin Americ and hen in Eops, the comic to operate in sme pce int the wet cerry At the bight of thelr wage in the eighteenth spd intent centuries, bandonment in some European cies reached astonishing proportions in Madd, Dubin, and Wars op t obeifh of aewtoras mer

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