However, according to American Anthropologist David Valentine, many individuals resist the label "transgender" because it is overly inclusive. While some "cross-dress" to receive erotic pleasure, others have undergone serious and potentially fatal sexual reassignment surgery in order to be their preferred gender.
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Additionally, these activists are primarily white and middle-class, which contributes to the erasure of racial minority transgenders. While the meaning of "transgender" is still in formation, it is still very clear that American culture still resists accepting people who identify as neither male nor female, instead, they prefer to just be a person. This may be due in part to the idea that Americans view transgenderism as an expression of perverse sexuality, but, regardless, it is imperative that we acknowledge the rights and legitimacy of the transgender community.
For polyromantic people, they are attracted to many but not all genders, also known as asexual. The main identities relating to this are:. In many North American indigenous tribes, a person could be two-spirit. These people were generally viewed as having two spirits within them; both masculine and feminine. They dressed using both male and female garments and filled an essential and respected role in society. They generally took on this role around puberty.
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Male-bodied two-spirit's could be gravediggers, conductors of rituals, nurses during the war, craftspeople, storytellers, etc. Female-bodied two-spirit's could be traders, warriors, chiefs, hunters, guides, etc. Both could be diviners or medicine people. It was generally accepted that two-spirit's had a special power; they could have relationships with people of any sex, and the relationship was viewed more as "hetero-gender" than specifically homosexual or heterosexual.
In today's world, the role is being reclaimed by Native Americans who identify as such. Anthropologist Gill Shepherd [5] explored female sexual relationships among Swahili Muslims in Mombasa, Kenya, and found that relationships between females were perfectly acceptable, as were relationships between men.
Women are allowed to choose other women as sexual partners after they are married. Many such women also have a husband at home, are widowed, or divorced. Both sexes are open about their homosexual relationships, and it is considered normal. In contrast to some Western cultures, people generally do not think that homosexual relationships would damage a person's piety or moral fiber. Having a woman for a lover is less important than a woman's rank, and her being a good Muslim. A relationship may be set up in a number of ways. A young woman can go around to wealthy lesbian circles in order to find a lover.
A wealthy woman may not want her autonomy diminished by a husband and so establishes a relationship with another woman so that she may continue in her independence. A wealthy woman may set up a marriage of convenience with a man for a poorer woman so that when they are divorced soon after the poorer woman will live with her lesbian benefactress.
The relationships are not stigmatized and having a lesbian relationship, while less respectable than being married to a man, is nonetheless better than not being married at all. The relationships can or cannot include a sexual relationship, but a sexual relationship is more likely when one woman pays a bride-price, the exchange of a bride for money, land, or other property from the fiance's family, and constructs her own compound.
In Ancient Greece, same-sex relationships between men were considered the highest form of love; they were just as common and accepted as heterosexual relationships of today. This male-male relationship was based on love and reciprocity and typically called for the older man to initiate the relationship. He would give gifts to the younger man as a promise of love. Some who did not attempt to make this connection were seen as "shallow. The youth would be taught his duties as a citizen, and skills to further his place in society by the older man, and once the youth reached adulthood, the sexual relationship between the two men evolved into a very strong friendship.
As an adult, the youth would then marry a woman, and initiate a relationship with another adolescent. An exclusively homosexual relationship was discouraged, however, and not considered a substitute for male-female marriage. Marriage and the children that would be produced within it was required to maintain both the family and society. The wives were viewed by their husbands as domestics and child bearers.
While the men were away with their young lovers, women raised children and took care of the household. Women were discouraged from taking lovers outside of the marriage to bed. They are remarkable for their beliefs about human fertility cycles and the rites of passage they constructed, as a result,. In this case the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea have a rite of passage that allow young boys to become men, and viable husbands in the future.
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The Sambia place the onus of reproductive vitality on the male, believing that the baby is formed in the mother's womb by the father's life-giving semen. The child then gets all nourishment from the mother's milk, which causes them to grow and develop in the early stage of life. At the onset of puberty , however, it is believed that to develop any further the child must be reintroduced to the life-giving semen—the male's analog to milk. However, since they view semen as a highly scarce, albeit necessary resource for development, it must be carefully distributed among their people.
Thus, from ages seven to ten, boys are taken from their mothers and initiated into highly secret and complex ritual associations whereby the boys are taught to fellate older boys and bring them to orgasm , thereby ingesting their life-giving semen. It's thought that by doing this they will develop into strong and reproductively viable human beings. Around the age of 14, the boys switch places and become the fellated, providing the necessary sustenance for the next generation to develop.
Interestingly, the cultural practices of secret initiations diminished across the s and by the secret initiation rituals were no longer practiced. In March , U. District Judge, Daniel Jordan, ruled that Mississippi's long-held ban on same-sex parents adoption was unconstitutional. He cited the Supreme Court's decision in the Obergefell vs. Hodges court case that made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states in Mississippi was the last state with such a ban, meaning that it is now legal for gay parents to adopt children in all 50 states.
The ban, which simply states "adoption by couples of the same gender is prohibited" had been in place since Overturning this law was a long, overdue change that even the man who signed it into being, Former Mississippi Governor, Ronnie Musgrove, believed should be overturned. He has said that "this decision that all of us made together has made it harder for an untold number of children to grow up healthy and happy in Mississippi -- and that breaks my heart.
Hodges is the supreme court case that made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states on June 26, It was decided by a vote between Judges, Stephen G. It was a huge victory for all of the people throughout history who have fought for equal marriage rights and for the millions of LGBT people in the United States. The definition of sexual harassment is, "harassment in a workplace or other professional or social situation, involving the making of unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks" [6]. An example of sexual harassment in schooling could be teasing someone about their body parts, snapping a girl's bra strap, catcalling, touching or slapping private areas, or asking unwanted questions repeatedly.
Although in the U. S laws do not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments or isolated incidents, harassment is illegal when it is frequent enough to create a hostile or offensive work environment. The are several consequences for individuals who harass in the workplace such as losing their job or having a restraining order.
The International Labor Organization is a specialized United Nations agency that has addressed sexual harassment as a prohibited form of sex discrimination under the discrimination convention [7]. When looking at sexual harassment in culture, it is typical in most cultures that women are the most vulnerable to the abuse. However, in the Kung culture, both men and women are seen as aggressive.
Women especially are abusive verbally and tend to tease and provoke others. In Saudi Arabia, in specific the culture and Islam religion which construct the country's laws are against sexual harassment and display this in many ways. If an individual harasses a woman then the woman has the right to report it and the punishment for the man is jail time. Heteronormativity The idea that relationships between men and women are the norm, often resulting in harassment from believers of the idea.
This also infers that men and women will follow the social guidelines presented by their gender. Acephobia is the discrimination and hatred or mistreatment of asexual people. This is very similar to homophobia, and is often expressed through microaggressions , which are everyday actions or words that are common throughout society and reaffirm the privilege of the aggressor, [9] or identity erasure. These microaggressions can be extremely harmful and oppressive over time. For instance, if an asexual person's relative continually nags them about getting a boyfriend or girlfriend, this will over time wear on the person and cause them to emotional harm and distress.
Microaggressions like this are so common because society in the modern United States is highly sexualized; whether talking about branding, advertisement, or popular culture, there's a huge emphasis on sex and sexuality. Non-asexual people are not only the statistical majority, they're also the only culturally represented group which leads to a common belief often proclaimed as "truth" that everyone experiences sex and sexual feelings in the same way.
Though the development of that mindset is somewhat explainable, the negative effects it has on asexual people are devastating. Commonly, asexual people are told their identity is "just a phase" that they will "grow out of", or that "plenty of people chose not to have sex". Gender expression can often be shaped by the culture a child is raised in.
In the United States, children are often raised with the expectation of following their respective gender norms. This means they are expected to act feminine and motherly if they have a vagina, and tough and 'like a man' if they have a penis. Consequently, children are raised with rigid stereotypes of how they should express themselves, which often leads to confusion and unhappiness. This idea can also be explained by heteronormativity , which is the idea that heterosexuality is the only sexual orientation, and that people will follow the gender roles specified by their gender at birth.
While this is the unfortunate society we live in, this is not the case around the world, as different cultures have different perspectives of gender expression. For example, the Vezo is a society in Madagascar that determines sexual identity based on the actions of the individuals. Regardless of gender, one who participates in fishing would be considered a man in that society. Views of gender change with adapting culture, and even in the US progress has been made in the importance of breaking gender stereotypes and the fluidity of gender.
People are now starting to be able to identify by their preferred pronouns. In many liberal colleges, many clubs and organizations will ask for a persons preferred pronouns. The way that people are able to relate to each other when they are allowed to express themselves fully and tell people their identity widens immensely. Commonly preferred pronouns include:. Taboos are actions that are looked down on from the society as a whole. They are often deemed as inappropriate or illegal especially when regarding sexual behavior.
They are the ideals in a culture that are seen as inappropriate such as incest, bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia, and voyeurism. Statutory rape laws also exist where the government has stepped in and enforced norms on society. Incest is considered a taboo in many Western societies, and often cited on the grounds that it can create genetic disorders, via interbreeding. However, this isn't entirely true and is widely circulated to be true even among scientific communities because of the strong taboo against incest relationships. Historically speaking, the same western society which now shames incest marriage and sexual relations has a strong past of cousin marriage to keep lineages "pure" and preserve royal blood.
But if a genetic mutation occurs within a population, inbreeding will tend to promote that mutation to become more widely distributed. Incest is sexual relations between closely related people. Incest is perhaps the most culturally universal taboo. However, different norms exist among cultures as to what constitutes as a permissible sex partner or not. Parent-child and sibling-sibling unions are almost universally taboo. Much issue arises with the concept of incest due to the high rate of deformities in children as a result of incest, resulting from the combination of very similar genome in the child.
In Islam, according to the actions of Prophet Muhammad, marriage between cousins is explicitly allowed and even encouraged in Islam. Even the Arabic culture support this because the family's last name is favored and valued due to tribal history and upbringing similarities. Marrying in the family cousins is considered pure blood. Nudity is defined as the state of wearing no clothing.
The wearing of clothing is a predominantly human characteristic, likely arising from the functional needs such as climate protection but also from other needs such as decoration or prestige. The amount of clothing worn depends on both functional and cultural circumstances. Social considerations involve modesty, decency, and social norms. In the current day, to most societies and cultures associate human nudity with sexuality.
Historically though, nudity has been practiced in many cultures without association with sexuality including the Egyptians, Romans, and many hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates. Reproduction is a basic function of every organism on Earth and passes on the building blocks of life from one generation to another.
Every culture in the world has traditions, rules, and ceremonies which preside around reproduction. These may range from sexual practices of Hawaiian nobility to the Supreme Court of the United States in legal disputes such as Roe v. Reproduction is an ever present variable in anthropology and a prevalent force shaping the world. Almost all cultures have norms governing sex and reproduction; these range from cultural universals such as the incest taboo to legal concepts such as child support.
However, even these taboos are not found to be entirely universal. In many early cultures, such as the Hawaiians, royalty could only be passed down to the child of two royal family members, usually a brother and sister. Different cultures each have individual expectations of women regarding when they begin having children, how many they have, and what age they usually stop having children. For example, women in more male-dominated societies have less or no say in their reproductive processes and health. Reproduction is the biological process by which new individual organisms are produced.
Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life;.
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According to the Encyclopedia of Anthropology, human reproduction refers to "the process by which new social members are produced- specifically, the physiological process of conception, pregnancy, birth, and child raising". From a larger perspective, reproduction is what allows a whole society to continue thriving into the future and avoid extinction. Political power has come to be the central concern of reproductive studies since those who have power have control over reproduction of large populations, which ultimately leads to power over that population.
This is why, since the 's, anthropological studies of reproduction have mainly focused on new reproductive technologies. These technologies have been designed to help guide human reproduction. Examples of "new reproductive technologies" include intrauterine devices, birth control pills, artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, and many others which are able to manipulate reproduction. Birth control is a form of contraceptive to limit the chances of pregnancy. Childbirth methods vary for women in all different cultures. More industrialized societies, such as the United States, treat pregnancy as a medical problem to be very carefully handled, as opposed to many other cultures that handle it in a completely different manner.
For example, people in Agricultural societies usually handle childbirth with midwives [11] , and foraging cultures give birth individually. When a woman living in America goes into childbirth, she is immediately taken to a sanitary environment where there are doctors and nurses present and specifically trained to help the woman through the process.
Though in a sterile environment, the newborn infant is not entirely safe from disease. After all, most western cultures consider it normal to give birth in the same building that houses all of society's sick. Complications do happen on a regular basis, but because of the high-tech environments, the complications can usually be resolved. With the Ache from Paraguay the women that go into labor are taken to more secluded areas. They are meant to squat, proceed to deliver their child by themselves, bite off the umbilical cord, put the newborn to breast, clean themselves and their baby, and go back to their people.
This practice parallels the concept that nature is the Mother in foraging communities. Nature provides a shelter for birthing and is a place where life is given. Because complications are much more common in this situation with risk of infection, excessive bleeding, and overall lack of medical attention, many cultures use midwives to assist the mother. Mothers and their families choose this route either because of religious reasons, cultural purposes, or possibly even lack of financial adequacy to pay hospital bills.
For instance, the Lom women don't necessarily have "restrictions" to their pregnancies, but one exception is a prohibition on certain behaviors—the behavior being that pregnant women are to not sit in doorways. To the Lom culture, sitting in a doorway as a pregnant woman is said to cause a prolonged and painful pregnancy. However, once the woman has given birth to their son or daughter, there is an array of rules and regulations that must be followed. Some of the rules include a period of taboo, or prohibition pantang that sets in after birth. This period, called repas which also means 'brittle', 'fragile' lasts for a duration of 44 to 45 days.
For example, depression in a mother after childbirth, called postpartum depression, can result from a poor social support system among other things. This can potentially result in far more problematic conditions such as postpartum psychosis in which the depression becomes chronic and can effect the mothers physical health and ability to bond with her child. Adoption is the action of adopting or being adopted. If a mother were to give up her baby or child, that child would be available to anybody who was looking to start a family. The birth mother may give the child away for many reasons, such as not being able to provide for it, being too young to have a child, or simply because she may not want a child at all.
In America, that child would go through the foster care system until they are chosen by prospective parents. There is a slight social stigma associated with adopting or being adopted, but for many, it's simply another way to build a family.
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Abortion is the action of terminating a pregnancy or is the premature exit of products of conception. To do this in an induced abortion, one must remove the embryo or fetus from a woman's uterus after conception. There are several different ways to perform an abortion. Induced abortions are different from spontaneous abortions also defined as a miscarriage because an induced abortion is usually done on purpose, whereas a spontaneous abortion is usually unexpected. There are a variety of ways to perform an induced abortion, some relatively safe and others extremely dangerous. In more developed countries the use of medical or surgical abortion is used.
Medical abortion is performed with the use of pharmaceutical drugs, which are only useful in the first trimester of a pregnancy. Surgical abortion also known as a vacuum abortion is the most common method used. To perform a surgical abortion one removes the fetus or embryo, membranes, and placenta using a suction method with a syringe this is called manual vacuum aspiration or MVA. Another way to perform a surgical abortion is through the use of an electric pump this is called electric vacuum aspiration or EVA. Surgical abortion is usually performed from the fifteenth week of pregnancy to the twenty-sixth.
There are also other types of abortion that are not performed medically or surgically. These methods include the use of herbs and special diets as discussed above in the section control of pregnancy. There are also other ways that are not as safe. One method of abortion is attempted from abdomen trauma or putting pressure on the uterus externally.
The amount of force upon the abdomen is extreme and does not always succeed in a miscarriage. This form of abortion can result in internal bruising and can be harmful to the mother of the child. The most unsafe methods of abortion are almost always self-induced through the insertion of non-medical tools into the uterus.
These tools can include wire clothing hangers or even knitting needles. Self-induced abortions are most dangerous because they can result in infection and lacerations of the uterus which could eventually result in death if not properly treated. Overall, the pain of a surgical abortion is between that of a dull toothache and a headache or a mild backache. For example, women in Nigeria have been known to mix dry gin with 'Alabukun' powder to induce abortion.
Alabukun Powder contains the salts Acetylsalicylic Acid and caffeine as active ingredients. This method of abortion is usually performed by young Nigerian women, who do not have the proper funds to receive an abortion done by a doctor. This mixture is deadly and will surely kill the fetus. Abortion in the United States is a very controversial issue. There is quite a bit of political and ethical debate that underlies whether or not it should be legal.
In a legal sense in the United States, the term, "abortion" refers to induced abortion as opposed to spontaneous, because it is purposeful. The first abortion laws in the U. By the 's most abortions had been deemed illegal, and in all states had banned abortions. Wade, abortion was illegal in over half of the U. It was legal upon request in only four states. In deciding the outcome of Roe vs. Opinions are based on religion, gender, political party, region, and can vary depending on specific reasons for a woman having an abortion.
Abortion is illegal in Eritrea unless it is medically necessary for the health of the mother. When a young girl unexpectedly gets pregnant, she cannot legally acquire an abortion unless given permission by a medical professional. Colombia has stricter laws regarding abortion than America. Colombia, along with El Salvador and Chile, where the 3 countries in Latin America which completely prohibited any kind of abortion by law.
This ruling caused a large controversy between the Catholic Church and the doctors who perform the surgeries as well as the women who chose to have the abortion. In Colombia, it is estimated that on average women have more than one illegal abortion throughout their life. An ethnographic example of a positive puberty ritual can be found in Navajo culture.
When a Navajo girl reaches puberty, she undergoes a four-day ceremony called ceremony which signifies her transformation from childhood into womanhood. The ceremony is centered around the Navajo myth of Changing Woman [15] , the first woman on Earth who was able to bear children. The myth says that Changing Woman performed the first Kinaalda and that the ceremony gave her the ability to have children. Because of this, all Navajo girls must also undergo the ceremony so that they will grow into strong women who can also have children. When a girl turns 15, it is traditional for her to celebrate both religiously and often socially with friends and family, showing that she has overcome puberty, reached adulthood, and is eligible for marriage, or more commonly today is ready to begin dating.
After the mass, many families choose to continue the celebration with an extravagant party, including fancy dresses, food, decorations, and often a live band and dancing. Some girls choose to go on a trip instead of having a party, but still enjoy time with family and close friends to celebrate the transition from childhood to womanhood. In Judaism, a traditional the traditional coming of age ceremony takes place at the age of thirteen.
For a boy, this is called a Bar Mitzvah and for a girl, it's called a Bat Mitzvah. This tradition includes both a religious portion of the individual's life reading a portion of the religious text the Torah and a lively party. For the individual, it is one of the most important traditions in Judaism, rivaled only by marriage. In the Philippines, puberty for boys is based on circumcision. Filipino people consider a boy becoming a man when he gets circumcised, and the age range boys usually get circumcised is around Children in the Philippines are taught that they are a man when you get circumcised so they get excited to get circumcised but also they may feel terrified because the process of circumcision in the Philippines isn't modern for some individuals since they can not afford to get circumcised in an actual hospital; they just go to small clinics.
The best position for the baby to be born is head first. The head first position poses the least amount of danger for both baby and mother. When a baby is breached feet or buttocks first it can cause many complications for both the baby and the mother. Vaginal birth - the natural emergence of the baby from the mother's birth canal. This is the preferred method of birth for most women. The natural pushing is the painful part of birth but it can be controlled with breathing exercises.
The birthing process is also practiced in many different types of pain management. While pain management is often medical, there are types of natural birth that give women the choice to have a birth in a controlled and comfortable environment without the distraction or stress of the hospital.
In hypnobirthing, the mother undergoes self-hypnosis as a method of pain control. Hypnosis is defined as, "a naturally induced state of concentration, a place where mind and body can communicate with the subconscious mind. According to HypnoBirthing of Colorado [17] the state of self-hypnosis while delivering can put the woman in a completely relaxed and day-dreamy attitude. The woman, however, will still feel in complete control and be able to sense her surges also called contractions. In hypnobirthing, one of the goals is to let the body's natural painkillers, endorphins, to take over the pain instead of letting stress enhance the pain.
Another popular form of natural childbirth is water birth. Water birth is the process of giving birth in a tub of warm water. This can be done at home or in a birthing center, but it is usually recommended that a Douala, midwife, or medical professional be present. It is thought that the relaxing environment will help the mother push more effectively and be a pleasant, non-stressful environment for the baby to enter the world into. Water births have been gaining popularity since the 's. There are some possibilities for danger to occur in this situation, such as the baby inhaling water when underwater.
Usually, this will not occur; however, because the baby still receives oxygen through the umbilical cord and breathes in the womb out of instinct. This diversity can cause significant psychological and social uncertainty in the short and long term for all individuals depicted, including the offspring at the centre of this chaotic representation, because cognitively people feel uncomfortable if their thoughts a mother and father and a baby conceived within the relationship, genetically both theirs and gestated by the mother do not match their behaviours organizing multiple people to contribute to the achievement of another type of family.
Broadly, these combinations include only two types of surrogacy: The nine theoretically possible combinations of offspring resulting from surrogate arrangements, where the gestation in all instances is with the surrogate mother. Furthermore, social and cultural attitudes to any new innovations or interventions are largely shaped by what is considered the norm. Although it is thought that surrogacy has been practised since ancient times Schenker, , there is no widely acceptable precedent in the practice of gestating and relinquishing babies.
Nevertheless, trends have shifted. Early reports in the scientific literature of donor insemination in the BMJ in the s generated a great deal of controversy.
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The cycle of resistance followed by acceptability was similar for IVF in the s and oocyte donation and surrogacy in the s Buster et al. Another immensely confusing factor in the determination of parenthood in the present era of reproductive technology concerns the classification used to define preferred or true parenthood. Current laws and most cultural values define parenthood and the family in biological rather than social terms van den Akker, b , contributing to the overwhelming preference for medical interventions for treatment of infertility in infertile populations Bartholet, ; Bartholet et al.
Interestingly, however, popular discourses of motherhood and fatherhood leave out important biological facts, as is seen for example in i the absence of heterosexual sex in establishing an assisted reproduction technique ART pregnancy and ii the absence of gestation and delivery in gestational surrogacy parenthood.
In these examples, the resultant individuals who became the parents consider themselves to be the real parents because their chromosomes were involved, even though the biological components were not. This new reality is not limited to chromosomal parenthood: This latter new reality goes against the Oxford Dictionary definition of motherhood. According to the dictionary, the true surrogate is the one who acts in place of another and this, in surrogacy if the birth mother is the legal mother , is the intended mother!
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Within the professions, the British Medical Association BMA, changed its stance on surrogacy from seeing it as an unacceptable means to overcome childlessness to accepting it as an inevitable option. They issued further guidelines for support and good practice, but unfortunately, a decade later, the legal literature is still fraught with regulations which can have devastating effects on the triads involved in surrogacy arrangements. The surrogate is always registered as the legal mother of the child, even if an embryo from the recipient couple was used as in gestational surrogacy.
Lastly, although surrogacy is carried out relatively openly within the UK, social support for the practice is still lacking. Studies meeting criteria for a systematic review were insufficiently available. Other references came from a review and a document made available by the HFEA van den Akker, a and a number of books, including Jennings , Leiblum , Hammer-Burns and Covington and van den Akker b. Public opinion has demonstrated that acceptance of surrogacy like other forms of third party treatments tends to be limited Brook et al. There are, however, some doubts about the consistency across populations and type of surrogacy.
At one extreme, Stern et al. Fishman and Schenker reported that religion played a role in the legal availability of surrogacy in Israel. Similar compromises have been observed in Catholic teachings Kopfensteiner, , although the Vatican does not accept IVF. Others have reported that commercial surrogacy is unacceptable Krishnan, , but non-commercial gestational surrogacy is perceived as relatively acceptable compared with genetic surrogacy Appleton, ; Bromham, ; Frasier and Chapman, ; BMA, ; Suzuki et al. Unfortunately, any general population survey on surrogacy is likely to be heavily influenced by the prevailing negative cases portrayed in the media Appleton, More importantly, normal populations have not been subjected to a need to redefine the concept of parenthood and are therefore likely to strive to maintain what Festinger called a cognitively consonant state.
Cognitive consonance is described as a state of equilibrium between their thoughts or beliefs about e. It is likely though untested that infertile couples who choose to opt for third party reproduction do so after a considerable amount of thinking about how such a family will work for them, that is, they have to move from cognitive dissonance an imbalance or disequilibrium between beliefs and actions to consonance. It is also likely that many infertile populations never reach cognitive consonance, and they are likely to be the included in the large numbers who do not initiate treatment Greil and McQuillan, One study of adoptive parents, who subsequently conceived naturally, reported that they were significantly more likely to say that if they could do it again, they would not adopt Berry, She found that a paradox was evident in her study sample: Kane and Langdridge et al.
Moreover, van Balen et al. To some infertile couples, not having a genetic link at all was so unattractive that they were not prepared to consider that as a realistic option. Spirals of preferences from a naturally conceived fully genetically related and gestated baby to adoption with no genetic or biological ties.
Introduction
In treatment for infertility, the aim is to obtain a pregnancy or baby for the infertile parent; in adoption the opposite occurs: Children available for adoption also tend to be older, with few healthy infants or young children available for adoption placement. They are therefore not good comparisons in all respects. Nevertheless, some of the research and practices on adoption can serve as models for surrogate practices.
Research into adoption has shown that information and practices change rapidly Hill and Shaw, Indeed, current debates and new legislations enforce a similar level of openness and disclosure for donor conception practices e. Surrogates themselves believe surrogacy takes a special type of person. Some surrogates are very young and may not understand the consequences and regret their decisions later at the time of relinquishment or even later in life, when it is too late to do anything about it Cotton, ; van den Akker, b.
Overall, no psychopathology was evident in surrogates studied by van den Akker and Hanafin , although Franks did report some minor psychological problems in his American surrogates. Baslington interviewed 19 surrogate mothers and found them to be assertive and not medically or otherwise controlled. In the latter study, genetic surrogates in particular felt in control.
To some extent, this altruistic picture of surrogates has been supported in British studies. Blyth interviewed 19 surrogates and van den Akker asked 15 surrogates to complete long questionnaires 7 years later. The socioeconomic status, educational level, age and parity were similar in the latter studies. Few surrogates explicitly stated that money was one reason for becoming a surrogate, and the majority said they did it for altruistic reasons. Most surrogates enjoyed pregnancy and childbirth, and many surrogates said surrogacy fulfilled or added something to their lives increased feelings of self-worth and self-confidence, and the development of intense and unusual friendships with the commissioning parents, particularly the commissioning mothers.
Relinquishment of the baby was a happy event for most surrogates, although some said they felt relief when it was all over. Happiness was mixed with sadness during relinquishment for a proportion of the women. Similar sentiments were found in American surrogates by Ragone Similar concerns were expressed by Davies concerning an anonymous arrangement. A longitudinal study of surrogate mothers in open arrangements has noted that in the first 6 months following relinquishment, no negative psychological consequences are reported van den Akker, c.
Conceiving, carrying and delivering a baby is the start of a process of care and commitment to nurture the baby through childhood and into adulthood. This is culturally expected. Having a social termination of pregnancy or giving a child up for adoption are controversies to the accepted norm, and for surrogacy, where the surrogate conceives only to give the baby up following delivery, the process is even more unconventional. Theoretically, women are known to develop varying degrees of attachment to their fetus during pregnancy Rubin, , and this is carried over to the baby following birth.
According to research in the s and s, prenatal attachment is influenced by a number of factors such as maternal age and attitude towards the pregnancy Marteau et al. Research, which has looked at attachment, has found that surrogate mothers are less attached to the fetus Fisher and Gilman, ; van den Akker, in preparation and less attached to the baby following delivery van den Akker, in preparation.
Both studies have shown that surrogates are advised by their surrogate agency to ensure they understand whose baby they are carrying and giving up. Consequently, surrogate mothers do not allow themselves to be attached to the baby or infant following delivery. The practice of handing the baby over to the commissioning couples straight after birth also reinforces the advice.
The surrogate agencies assist surrogates in reconciling their own maternal thoughts and feelings, by cognitively restructuring these feelings to match their behaviours relinquishment of the baby. In fact, in general, the surrogate agency information appears to be quite successful in assisting surrogates to achieve a cognitively consonant state van den Akker, c.
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