‘We are Family’: The Regulation of ‘Female-Only’ Reproduction

Abstract

In this article I seek to examine the ways in which gay and lesbian struggles are shaped by their political and national context. I have analyzed the public debate concerning assisted insemination in relation to same-sex parenting and single mothers in Denmark as it took place during the years 1997-2002, and, as such, this article offers a reading of sexual politics in a country which is often portrayed as one of the most liberal ones when it comes to gay and lesbian rights. I further show the way in which the rights agenda can prove problematic and limited, in relation to issues of family and parenting. Thus I point to the inherent problems of a universalized conception of gay and lesbian struggles and find it pertinent to consider how organizing frameworks such as gender, sexuality and nationality determine the site of resistance and the articulation of what can be deemed political.

Contested Heteronormativities: Discourses of Fatherhood among Lesbian Parents in Sweden and Ireland

“…One clinic, which has since closed its services, openly advertised donor insemination for lesbians and single women in the 1990s. It appears that liberal market policy in Ireland may facilitate access to private services, unlike in a social democratic society such as Sweden (Lüttichau, 2004;McDonnell, 1999). However, no clinic in Ireland is currently offering this service to lesbians, despite the absence of specific legislative prohibition.…”