Procreative ethics of care in the process of in vitro fertilization in Serbia: a culture of giving or a crisis of altruism?

Mitrović, Veselin (2014) Procreative ethics of care in the process of in vitro fertilization in Serbia: a culture of giving or a crisis of altruism? Teme, 38 (1). pp. 193-211. ISSN 0353-7919 eISSN 1820-7804

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Abstract

This paper explores the nature and relations between culture, crisis, and the actions of all participants in the process of in vitro fertilization in Serbia. The analysis covers specific parts of the accounts told by the participants — their relationship towards personality traits, e.g. identity, motives, and roles on the one hand, and the image of a good quality of life of the parents, who overcome previous reproductive limitations with the help of biotech fertilization, on the other hand. This paper is also relevant because it provides insight into the crisis that arises from the capability or incapability of receiving or giving excess reproductive material. The aim of the paper is to show what the participants intimately consider as the positive and negative features of artificial conception and procreative altruism. The resolution of this dilemma can be found in participants’ insights on the ethics of care, which, in addition to its epistemic association with altruism, contains a darker side.

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