Do ‘in vitro children’ exist? The ‘ontological choreography’ between public debates and private experiences in Poland

ABSTRACT

Children who were born used IVF in Poland are subject of vivid discussion nowadays. In this article, we probe the ontology of the in vitro child: do in vitro children exist? If so, how and where? We analyse how an ‘IVF child’ is constructed through public discourses and private narratives. We explore media publications, as well as doctors’ and parents’ narratives concerning IVF children. A very strong voice in the debate has Catholic Church, which opposes medically assisted reproduction. Our main interest in this text are the answers of children and adults born using in vitro. Even young children recognize some focal points from the debate over assisted reproduction and refer to them. Their narratives show that they feel interpellated into existence by various discourses. In this manner, we argue, being an ‘in vitro child’ in Poland is a political status, not a biological one.

KEYWORDS:

• Poland
• in vitro fertilization
• children
• stigmatization
• interpellation

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their suggestions which greatly improved this paper. Moreover, we are grateful to our colleagues from the Interdisciplinary Team on Childhood Research from the University of Warsaw for their discussions about our reseach.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Society for Fertility Treatment and Adoption Support ‘Our Stork’ is a leading patients’ organization for infertile people in Poland; it is very politically active and runs the biggest internet forum for patients in Europe.

Additional information

Funding

The research on which this article is based was made possible through financial support from the Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Centre of Science) in Poland [grant number DEC-2012/07/E/HS3/01024].