The Desire for Children, the Children of one\u2019s Desire. The Meaning of Medically Assisted Procreation and Technological Family Planning

The spread of medically assisted procreation (MAP) techniques promises to realise the previously denied human dream of planning and controlling one\u2019s progeny. The reproductive business market tends to fuel this dream, promising that technology can take over where nature falls short. Based on the spread of individualism and instrumental rationality, this promise modifies the social imaginary of procreation and generativity. The new social imaginary features a disproportionately greater freedom of choice and decision-making powers for adults (parents), along with increased risks of genetic determination also given the extremely rapid developments in genetics. At the same time, this demand is fuelled by the presence of a booming private reproductive market which often employs commercial marketing techniques by promising couples and women not only that they can achieve their desire for a child but can make the \u2018child of their desire\u2019 \u2013 they can have the children that they want, when and how they want them. This article presents the results of an exploratory study conducted with a sample of 360 subjects aged between 25 and 45 who may or may not have not used MAP and examines their responses to a questionnaire. In particular, what lies behind the idea that technology and private fee-based services can supplant nature and public services in areas that they cannot reach? How widespread is the idea? What are the ethical, social and cultural implications at the root of the concept? How can this idea modify the sense and meaning of procreation? What level of freedom and rights should the baby be granted? The results of the research show that the sample is divided almost equally on the issue of MAP between those who acknowledge its potential but are aware of its associated social and cultural risks and those who highlight its potential by referring to rights-based reasons and money-based reasons

Body and Sexuality in the Struggle for Recognition: The Nature-Nurture Debate in a New Social Imaginary

The claims made by all social groups who do not identify with the dominant model of heteronormativity can be framed within the broader context of struggles for the recognition of cultural and identity rights pertaining to their sexuality. Such demands conform to Hegel’s classic pattern of recognition, later reworked by Honneth, with identity struggles that are variously private (construction of the self, self-confidence), public (self-worth, legal recognition) and community-based (respect for cultures epitomising a certain way of life). With their aim of enabling a just life to coexist with a good life, these claims enter the realm of communitarian theories. Indeed, despite the strong emphasis on safeguarding individual and subjective rights, a communitarian element is apparent inasmuch as these movements demand “different” laws to protect “different” subjects. Recognition and respect for diversity are embedded in the new narrative championed by neo-communitarians, which requires fragmentation of the legal system in order to take consistent shape

Babies are not Born under a Cabbage Leaf

AbstractThe focus of this study is to reflect on the political and cultural climate surrounding the Senate\u2019s approval (on 25 February 2016) of the draft law on civil unions and de facto unions, known as the Cirinn\ue0 law after the Senator (Monica Cirinn\ue0) that presented it. The draft law was passed in a vote of confidence and will now return to the Chamber of Deputies. It was approved on 11 May by the Chamber of Deputies, without further modification.The events surrounding the approval of the draft law are an excellent touchstone for understanding the political and cultural climate in which it evolved. They reveal much about the level of sensitivity of civil society towards an issue \u2013 same-sex unions \u2013 that raises significant questions about the nature of the relationship between rights and obligations, new family configurations and parental responsibilities.The law will inevitably have effects that we must ponder and discuss in our capacity as sociologists

Woman, Body, Conception: Unveiling the Arcana

Abstract The development of techniques of medically assisted procreation (hereinafter MAP) \u2013 above all the ability to form an embryo outside a woman\u2019s body and surrogacy procedures \u2013 has generated heated international debate involving doctors, geneticists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, bioethicists, feminists, and legal experts. This long list of protagonists might yet grow as MAP affects one of the two most important symbolic aspects of human life: the beginning and the end. Reflecting on the issue of birth (the beginning of life) means asking questions about sexuality and conception which relate directly to the female body. This article highlights the decisive impact of MAP techniques on the new social imaginaries of the body, sexuality, and conception. The new symbols and myths which emerge tell of sexless, de-eroticised, and empty male and female bodies: the horizon of the imaginary now features the \u2018androgynous\u2019 woman and the \u2018gynandrous\u2019 man, while conception occurs in a relational vacuum

In search of Lost Time. Family, Nature and Culture

There is a spectre haunting current political, cultural and ideological debate in Italy (and perhaps throughout Europe): the traditional famiily

A Rejoinder to Alejandra Marinovic

It seems to me that the split between charismatic-spontaneous relationships, on the one hand, and structured social and institutional relationships, on the other, cannot be perfectly reconstructed (see Hegel and his writings on Christianity). A charism always affects social, economic, and political structures and urges their transformation. But it would be simplistic to think that the utopia inherent in a charism can solve the complex dynamics that regulate systemic and objective structures of society

Line-Recovery by Programmable Particles

Shape formation has been recently studied in distributed systems of programmable particles. In this paper we consider the shape recovery problem of restoring the shape when $f$ of the $n$ particles have crashed. We focus on the basic line shape, used as a tool for the construction of more complex configurations. We present a solution to the line recovery problem by the non-faulty anonymous particles; the solution works regardless of the initial distribution and number $f<n-4$ of faults, of the local orientations of the non-faulty entities, and of the number of non-faulty entities activated in each round (i.e., semi-synchronous adversarial scheduler)

Meeting in a Polygon by Anonymous Oblivious Robots

The Meeting problem for $k\geq 2$ searchers in a polygon $P$ (possibly with holes) consists in making the searchers move within $P$, according to a distributed algorithm, in such a way that at least two of them eventually come to see each other, regardless of their initial positions. The polygon is initially unknown to the searchers, and its edges obstruct both movement and vision. Depending on the shape of $P$, we minimize the number of searchers $k$ for which the Meeting problem is solvable. Specifically, if $P$ has a rotational symmetry of order $\sigma$ (where $\sigma=1$ corresponds to no rotational symmetry), we prove that $k=\sigma+1$ searchers are sufficient, and the bound is tight. Furthermore, we give an improved algorithm that optimally solves the Meeting problem with $k=2$ searchers in all polygons whose barycenter is not in a hole (which includes the polygons with no holes). Our algorithms can be implemented in a variety of standard models of mobile robots operating in Look-Compute-Move cycles. For instance, if the searchers have memory but are anonymous, asynchronous, and have no agreement on a coordinate system or a notion of clockwise direction, then our algorithms work even if the initial memory contents of the searchers are arbitrary and possibly misleading. Moreover, oblivious searchers can execute our algorithms as well, encoding information by carefully positioning themselves within the polygon. This code is computable with basic arithmetic operations, and each searcher can geometrically construct its own destination point at each cycle using only a compass. We stress that such memoryless searchers may be located anywhere in the polygon when the execution begins, and hence the information they initially encode is arbitrary. Our algorithms use a self-stabilizing map construction subroutine which is of independent interest.Comment: 37 pages, 9 figure