The local culture of in vitro fertilization in Turkey: women's narratives of "test-tube baby" technologies

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the complex relationship between women and testtube baby technologies in Turkey through women’s narratives of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). This study focuses on the ways in which how these global biomedical technologies are produced, practiced, experienced and narrativized within the local context of Turkey. In this study, these processes are discussed over the three basic interrelated points. Firstly, the major social processes and actors that converge to produce “the local culture” of IVF in Turkey are examined. It is mainly focused on the legal, religious, economic and popular conditions of its production, through which IVF is defined as a medical treatment, infertility is described as a medical disease and the couple is constructed as a patient unit of IVF. By examining the local production of testtube baby technology in Turkey, this study aims to reveal that power relations are at stake in the practice of science and medicine. Secondly, it is discussed how gender is at play in the practice of test-tube baby technologies by focusing on the construction of “the couple” within the field of IVF and women’s narratives of “becoming a couple” in this process. Finally, the discourse of hope surrounding the world of IVF is problematized. Although through hope discourse test-tube baby technology is represented as a miracle treatment for “infertile” couples, women’s narratives of IVF reveal quite different picture of IVF. This study claims that women’s narratives shed light on the ignored aspects of their test-tube baby experiences.