Between Advanced Medical Technology and Prayer: Infertility Treatment in Post-socialist Poland

Abstract

Abstract:In Poland, invitro fertilisation technology (IVF) has been in use for over 25 years, garnering success and social approval. However, in 2007, a heated debate erupted on the moral, legal and economic aspects of IVF. A growing chorus of emphatic Catholic voices calls for IVF to be banned. This paper focuses on 'naprotechnology', a new actor and a fresh card in Poland's IVF debate. This method of treating infertility in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church is promoted as a cheaper and more effective alternative to IVF. Naprotechnology is primarily based on close observation of the female fertility cycle, but also involves pharmacological or surgical treatments. Most Polish gynecologists specialising in infertility treatments are strongly critical of the method, which is seldom referenced in international medical literature. Nonetheless, naprotechnology has considerable exposure in major Polish media outlets. The method has been debated in the Polish Parliament and is promoted by many politicians. The author argues that, despite the possible perception of naprotechnology as an emancipating force, it is in fact a form of a colonisation of the female body and strengthens traditional gender imagery and modern forms of discipline (control, confession, body regimes). Keywords: in vitro fertilisation, Catholic Church, naprotechnology, post-socialism, democratisation, Poland Sociologický časopis /Czech Sociological Review, 2014, Vol. 50, No. 6: 939-960 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13060/00380288.2014 'For some time the public debate on in vitro fertilisation has been shaken up by the extraordinary news of a new method of infertility treatment called naprotechnology', wrote Izabela Kloc, a member of the Polish Parliament, in her interpellation to the Minister of Health in 2012. 'Not only is this method described as an alternative to in vitro fertilisation, but it is also highly effective. Unlike on in vitro fertilization, which by its nature involves destroying conceived human beings and thus brings about death rather than life, naprotechnology is both ethical and

How the Political Becomes Private: In Vitro Fertilization and the Catholic Church in Poland

“…Science is not in competition with religious language here; on the contrary, it serves for legitimation. Perhaps, the best example is “naprotechnology”: promoted and approved of by the Catholic Church, this method uses evidence based medicine, alternative medicine, complementary medicine as well as very detailed observations of the female body, such as of the vaginal discharge (for more on this method see: Radkowska-Walkowicz 2014b ). The Catholic daily Nasz Dziennik printed Archbishop Ignacy Dec’s commentary after the announcement of the Nobel Prize winners in the field of medicine, Robert G. Edwards and Patrick Steptoe, who in 1978 led to the first successful birth of a child conceived through IVF: Again, science has been enslaved.…”