Why do people want children of their 'own'? and also as conceived through reproductive technologies?

What is it about?

This book is the only book to ask why people want to have children they call their 'own' and how and why they use reproductive technologies to do so (if they do). This is regarded widely as a 'crazy' question, because it is taken for granted that people want children of their own 'blood' or 'genes', but in fact this just begs the question what people think their 'own' 'genes' or 'blood' are and what they do and how they make a child 'own'?

Featured Image

Photo by Chayene Rafaela on Unsplash

Photo by Chayene Rafaela on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Reproductive technologies draw their entire justification from the idea that it is crucial for many people to have children of their 'own' and this has all kinds of consequences, including for ideas of adoption, disability, race and ethnicity and gender and so on. Without due consideration for why and how people make ideas about what an 'own' child is and why it is so urgent for them to want one (or more), reproductive technologies cannot explore the consequences of their interventions, nor can we think about how to support people when reproductive technologies do not produce their 'own' child for them (as they often fail to do, of course). All these issues also affect wider issues such as ideas of what 'children' are when they are not seen to be 'own', including children in the global South or immigrant children, or fostered or adopted children (even when those children are also seen by some as 'own', this still is affected too by the idea of the genetically 'own' child).