10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17090
“Sperm donation”, “egg donation”, “double donation”, “embryo donation” and “embryo adoption” are the main terms that prospective parents in Italy employ to refer to donor reproductive practices, which are forbidden within Italian national territory since 2004. Italian residents who think of donated gametes or embryos as viable ways to parenthood currently need to address assisted reproduction centres abroad. Drawing on a four-year ethnographic research on Italian cross-border reproductive travellers approaching donor conception, this paper aims at investigating the ways in which prospective parents choose and make sense of different kind of donation practices that consist in the use of donor embryos and explores their understanding of such practices with reference to the notions of personhood and parenthood in a context of transnational reproduction. In particular, this paper explores how they make sense of different “histories” of embryos, included the way in which reproductive cells have changed owners according to different trajectories.
application/pdf
2038-3460
17090
1
en
Giulia Zanini
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
donor conception
Neither Gametes nor Children. Italian Prospective Parents and the Variable Meaning of Donor Embryos
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
4
Essays
2013-07-12
2023-06-01
2013-07-12
2023-07-17
87-109
TS
Giulia Zanini
2013/07/12
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17090
87
European University Institute
2038-3460
1
donor conception
en
109
Neither Gametes nor Children. Italian Prospective Parents and the Variable Meaning of Donor Embryos
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17090/16027
4
                                                                               Essay

Neither Gametes nor Children
Italian Prospective Parents and the Variable
Meaning of Donor Embryos
!
Giulia Zanini
European University Institute
!
    Abstract “Sperm donation”, “egg donation”, “double donation”, “embryo
    donation” and “embryo adoption” are the main terms that prospective par-
    ents in Italy employ to refer to donor reproductive practices, which are for-
    bidden within Italian national territory since 2004. Italian residents who think
    of donated gametes or embryos as viable ways to parenthood currently need
    to address assisted reproduction centres abroad. Drawing on a four-year
    ethnographic research on Italian cross-border reproductive travellers ap-
    proaching donor conception, this paper aims at investigating the ways in
    which prospective parents choose and make sense of different kind of dona-
    tion practices that consist in the use of donor embryos and explores their
    understanding of such practices with reference to the notions of personhood
    and parenthood in a context of transnational reproduction. In particular, this
    paper explores how they make sense of different “histories” of embryos, in-
    cluded the way in which reproductive cells have changed owners according
    to different trajectories.

    Keywords: Italy, cross-border reproductive care, embryo adoption, embryo
    donation, donor conception.

    Corresponding author: Giulia Zanini, Department of Social and Political
    Sciences, European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana, Via dei Roccettini, 9,
    50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy - Email: giulia.zanini@eui.eu.


1. Introduction
    Since February 2004, when the first Italian law on assisted reproduc-
tion, known as Law 40, came into force, Italian residents who aim at be-
coming parents with the use of donor gametes and embryos have to look
beyond national borders and to possibly seek assisted reproductive
treatments abroad. Donor conception was, in fact, banned by this law, on
the basis of principles such as the protection of heterosexual family unity
and the right of children not to be abandoned by their genetic parents.
    Strenuously supported by the Catholic Church and catholic “pro-life”
!
TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
4(1) pp. 87-109 – ISSN 2038-3460                  2013
www.tecnoscienza.net
88                                                                 Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

movements, which heralded the law as a necessary step to put an end to
the perceived reproductive “far west” (Hanafin 2006) which at the time
hold sway over Italy, the law explicitly introduced a particular protection
of the concepito1 that was new to Italian existing jurisprudence.2 Among
the most important novelties brought in by this law, there was the ban of
cryopreservation of embryos which had been normally performed by Ital-
ian fertility centres before.
    The destiny of these already cryopreserved embryos has sparked an
interesting discussion that has brought to the forefront the different un-
derstandings of life, right, ownership, human dignity, kinship and pro-
gress, and transformed the fate of these embryos into a matter of conten-
tion around which different legal, medical, political and cultural perspec-
tives have clashed.
    In July 2004, a Ministerial decree established that all fertility centres
storing cryopreserved embryos were compelled to contact all the people
whose assisted reproductive treatments produced such embryos and ask
them whether they wanted to keep them stored for transfer or relinquish
them. All the relinquished embryos and all those for which no answer was
received were to be considered in stato di abbandono (“neglected embry-
os”). The decree gave instructions to establish a National Biobank at the
“Ospedale Maggiore” in Milan where to store all the cryopreserved em-
bryos that had been declared in stato di abbandono.
    Despite the around 450.000 Euros which have been so far spent to
make a census of these embryos and to prepare the National Biobank, no
embryo ever joined the Biobank. In 2010 a special commission called by
the Ministry of Health with the task of examining the possibility of finally
transporting these embryos to the National Biobank recommended
against this operation, claiming, among other reasons, the high risk of
legal cases and the high cost of transportation. Moreover, since 2009, a
verdict by the Constitutional Court indirectly opened up again to cryo-
preservation of embryos, leading to a continuous increase in the number
of stored embryos and fuelling the large debate about the ways in which
embryos are to be considered ethically and from a juridical viewpoint. As
a result, no decision has been taken yet regarding the relinquished cryo-
preserved embryos stored in the fertility centres all over Italy.
    While this debate has been going on in the public sphere, where dif-

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
  A detailed definition of concepito (conceived being) is lacking both in the text of
the law and in the ministerial guidelines. This is alternatively referred to as “em-
bryo” and “baby-to-be” (nascituro) according to the context.
2
  Among the measures introduced, there was a limitation on the access to infertile
heterosexual couples of age; the prohibition of fertilizing more than three ova and
of withdrawing from consent after the embryos were produced; and the obliga-
tion to transfer all embryos that were produced at any cycle immediately and at
once. In addition, the law hampered the performance of preimplantation genetic
diagnosis, ruling that no selection of embryos was allowed.
Zanini                                                                  89
ferent ontological status of embryos have been confronted and different
possible uses of existing cryopreserved embryos discussed, a number of
Italian prospective parents seeking donor conception practices have pri-
vately embarked on reproductive travels abroad. Being exposed to differ-
ent procreative options, including the use of donor gametes and embryos,
they have produced their own understandings of both reproductive cells
and embryos and brought about different narrative and practical ways to
accomplish their own parental project.
    By focusing on Italian prospective parents who address donor concep-
tion practices as cross-border reproductive travellers, this paper aims at
presenting how the intention of becoming parents and the choice of ad-
dressing donor conception interact with people's understanding of re-
productive cells and embryos as part of their parental project. In particu-
lar, this paper does so by exploring the cases of Linda,3 a single woman,
and Camilla and Michele, a heterosexual couple, who are exposed to the
option of employing donor gametes and embryos for their own reproduc-
tive purpose at different points of their reproductive experience. These
people's approach to what they call “embryo donation” and “embryo
adoption” is analysed in order to highlight the “boundary-making prac-
tices” (Barad 2003) by which a shift in the ontology of gametes and em-
bryos is operated by prospective parents during their assisted reproduc-
tive experience.


2. Donor gametes and embryos

    Several terms may be employed to describe practices involving the use
of donor gametes and embryos and their use is yet another marker of the
different moral, legal, medical and social concerns that surround donor
conception. Donor conception is a general expression that refers to the
practice of conceiving children with the use of reproductive cells coming
from people who do not plan to participate in and are not allowed to take
on any legal or social parental role with regards to children who will be
born from this act. Donor conception practices include a rather vast array
of techniques that go from non-clinical sperm donation to clinical sperm
donation, egg, and embryo donation.
    Non-clinical sperm donation may be self-arranged by women who
make informal arrangements with male friends or other male donors who
provide their semen for insemination outside the clinical settings. This
practice is known as being especially common among lesbians (Nordqvist
2011; 2012) since the 1970s (Luce 2010). In clinical sperm donation, and
in medicalized donor conception in general, donors are recruited by
sperm banks and/or fertility centres, who organise collection of sperm

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3
    All the names that will appear in this paper are pseudonyms.
90                                                            Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

and retrieval of eggs within clinical settings and play as mediators be-
tween donors and recipients, managing both technical and legal relation-
ships among the parties and actively participating in the “ontological cho-
reography” (Thompson 2005) that makes the transfer of reproductive
cells from one subject to another productive of new kinship realities.
    While conception with donor sperm may occur both through insemi-
nation, namely the insertion of semen in the woman's womb, and through
in vitro fertilisation (IVF), which consists in the fertilisation of eggs in a
petri-dish, conception with donor eggs necessarily requires IVF. In sperm
donation, sperm is usually cryopreserved at the time of collection and
thawed at the moment of insemination or IVF, while in egg donation,
eggs are preferably fertilised immediately after being retrieved. In both
cases, the embryos that result from IVF are either transferred in the
womb of the prospective mother or surrogate, otherwise cryopreserved in
order to be thawed and possibly used some time in the future.
    Individuals and couples may have access to conception with donor
reproductive cells under different rulings which control recruitment and
match of donors and recipients and the ways in which information may
circulate among all the actors involved in the process. Sometimes, recipi-
ents may ask to attain conception with both donor sperm and eggs. In
these cases, they may be offered to choose what kind of embryos they
prefer to be transferred.
    Embryos that are available for donation may be fresh or cryopreserved
embryos that result from the combination of sperm and eggs produced by
donors who were separately recruited (ad hoc embryos) or have been
stored in behalf of individuals or couples as a result of some previous
treatments and appointed for being given to other prospective parents
(relinquished embryos). Such practice, which we will refer to as embryo
relinquishment (Blyth et al. 2011) emerges from the combination of clini-
cal protocols, regulations and negotiations between prospective parents
and doctors, which aim at reducing the risk of multiple pregnancies while
maximising the chance of safe pregnancies and living births and the pos-
sibility of cryopreserving unused embryos for successive implantation.
Afterwards, prospective parents may be asked to take a decision about
unused cryopreserved embryos and are usually offered to choose among
four main options, which consist in (1) keeping the embryos stored; (2)
allowing their destruction; (3) giving them away for research; (4) or do-
nating them to other prospective parents. In some cases, the embryos that
individuals or couples decide to place for donation after having under-
gone their own treatments may have not been produced with their own
reproductive cells but rather with donor sperm and/or eggs.
    The availability of such options and their applicability depends on dif-
ferent national or local legislation or on clinics' policies.
Zanini                                                                   91
3. The variable meanings of reproductive cells and embryos
     Fertility centres are places where human reproductive cells are isolat-
ed, manipulated and stored in order to fabricate parenthood. In these
reproductive medical settings an “ontological choreography” (Thompson
2005) takes place every day to transform the coexistence and interplay of
ontologically different kinds of things into actors of a highly coordinated
dynamic process that produces parents, children and kinship. Sperm,
eggs and embryos are expected to play crucial roles in the accomplish-
ment of such choreographic goal and the time and way in which these
entities enter and take part to the process represent important elements in
defining these roles. Reproductive cells and embryos are given special
meanings and are manipulated in different ways according to the purpose
of their use and to social and cultural contexts (Almeling 2006; 2007;
2009; 2011; Franklin and Roberts 2006; Franklin 2006).
     In sperm and egg donation practices, reproductive cells by donors are
forced into an evaluation and manipulation process that makes them es-
pecially suitable for reproducing receiving prospective parents. This pro-
cess involves measures of de-substantialisation and re-substantialisation
(Bestard and Orobigt 2009) of gametes and consists in depriving donated
reproductive cells of their original meaning as kinship-carriers (desubsta-
tialisation) and in re-conceptualising them as substances which allow kin-
ship to take place (resubstantialisation). In other words, donor gametes
are recognised as substances that do not carry kinship ties but make kin-
ship ties possible.
     The selection and manipulation of gametes by sperm banks and fertili-
ty centres contribute to this process insomuch as they generate new
products that are proposed to their clients and patients as untied and
highly specialised body parts. These products are “technosemen” (Moore
2007) and eggs which are presented to the public as especially selected
gametes, which have been prepared to enhance the chances of healthy
conception.
     The circulation of reproductive cells through medical donor concep-
tion is affected by and affects the ways in which people think of and ad-
dress donor conception as a reproductive and parental project. Rene Al-
meling (2007; 2009; 2011) has argued that economic, cultural, structural
factors interact in shaping the market of reproductive cells as they lead to
a different evaluation of reproductive cells and reproductive bodies in
unexpected ways. Although both sperm and eggs are equally needed to
produce embryos, in fact, they have attached a different economic value
according to located cultural norms. Speaking about North America, Al-
meling observes that reproductive cells are especially turned into means
to market and purchase “visions of middle-class, American femininity and
masculinity and […] motherhood and fatherhood” (2007, 336). Moreo-
ver, reproductive cells may be expected to carry race and ethnicity (Al-
meling 2007; Fox 2009; 2011; Moore 2007; Tyler 2007) and their circula-
92                                                             Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

tion between donors and recipients be affected by or/and organised ac-
cording to these principles (Khan 2000; Nahman 2006; 2013; Thompson
2005) in order to reproduce (or avoid to reproduce) supposed race or
ethnic phenotypical and ontological characters.
     More than simple combinations of separate egg and sperm, embryos
are considered “good spokesperson[s]” to shed light on the “enduring
tension between the sacred and the profane that characterize biomedi-
cine” since the treatments and understandings of embryos account “for
patterns of interactions that together make up a 'biomedical mode of re-
production'” (Thompson 2005, 247). In the context of assisted reproduc-
tive technologies (ART), embryos may be considered “protopersons or
even full persons by some people at some times in some places, when they
are maintained by certain kinds of equipment” (Thompson 2005, 250).
Although they are manipulated and stored as “material objects” (Thomp-
son 2005, 259), in fact, they may be considered as sacred entities insofar
as their viability represent intended parents' possibility of becoming par-
ents and allude to the future child's possible future life. The same embry-
os may stop being reproductive and loose their sacred character when
they are not considered as leading to a pregnancy any longer. In this case,
they may be seen as viable but not reproductive entities and may be used
for research. In other cases, like in Catholic doctrine, embryos remind of
religious sacredness independently of their reproductive potentiality. In
Catholic religion, in fact, human embryos represent the sanctity of human
life and cannot be used or manipulated in any way.
     In fertility centres, prospective parents are expected to take decisions
about the embryos that are created or are assigned to them throughout
their own treatments. In agreement with their practitioners they take de-
cisions about the embryos that are transferred and are asked to choose
what to do with the remaining ones.
     In particular, some fertility centres offer the possibility of giving one's
own embryos away for other people's family building purposes. Studies
about disposition decisions by prospective parents concerning their un-
used embryos show that “relinquishment of embryos for family building
is frequently -although not invariably- the least-favourite alternative”
(Blyth et al. 2011, 267) among those offered by the centres.4 Moreover,
people's declared intentions on this subject seem to differ from their ac-
tual behaviour, resulting in a much lower number of relinquishments for
family building than what expected.
     Chantal Collard and Shireen Kashmeri (2009; 2011) illustrate that the
question of the use of other people's cryopreserved embryos in assisted
reproduction is a problematic one not only because it brings back to the
moral and ethical contentious around the definition and disposal of “life”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4
 Blyth et al. (2011) review existing literature on the matter, published between
1995 and 2010 and concerning studies undertaken in Australia, Belgium, Brazil,
Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.
Zanini                                                                   93
(Franklin 1997) but also because it challenges the very ontology of kin-
ship. The ethnography by Collard and Kashmeri focuses on the partici-
pants in a particular program of assisted reproduction with donor embry-
os which is based on the assumption that prospective parents who have
unused embryos from their own reproductive treatments put them at the
disposal of other prospective parents and call it an “adoption” of embry-
os. This captivating work on the “embryo adoption” program called The
Snowflakes® run by the Californian Nightlight Christian Adoptions
sheds light on the ways in which “placing” and “adopting” embryos, par-
ents make sense of their adherence to the program and show how they
mobilise different logics for supporting the circulation of such embryos.
     In particular, a comparison between this ethnography and that by
Elizabeth Roberts (2007) in fertility centres in Ecuador, highlights that
different logics work in favour and against relinquishment or destruction
of embryos by prospective parents. Roberts argues that instead of being
only “embroiled in the politics of life” (Roberts 2007, 182), embryos may
be subject to different understandings. Especially, two different rationales
emerge in the context of possible embryo relinquishment, one supporting
life ethics, which considers embryos interchangeable living beings, and
the other supporting kin ethics, which imagine embryos as belonging to a
given network of kinship relationships. This last logics is, according to
Roberts, the one that leads some Ecuadorian to throw out embryos in-
stead of cryopreserving and giving them away, on the basis that these
were rather “conceptualized as 'family members' who required protection
from temporal discontinuity and uncontrolled circulation beyond family
boundaries, not as ‘life’ to be preserved.” (Roberts 2007, 182). Collard
and Kashmeri (2009) observe a different scenario, where prospective par-
ents draw both on life ethics and on kin ethics in order to support their
decision to “place” their embryos for adoption, considering embryos
their own “potential preborn children”, for which they need to find an-
other worthy family. Eric Blyth and colleagues (2011) account for studies
whose findings confirm that both attitudes are present in different na-
tional contexts.
     Interestingly, Christopher R. Newton and colleagues (2003, 883) ob-
serve that people who are more likely to relinquish their cryopreserved
embryos for family building tend to consider their act as part of a process
of “embryo adoption” instead of a “traditional medical donation”. Blyth
and colleagues (2011) agree that the model of gamete donation does not
fit embryo relinquishment for family building as motivations and percep-
tions of the people who create the embryos may be very different. They
conclude that, although different ways of understanding embryo relin-
quishment coexist, the majority of people participating in existing studies
mobilise kin ethics more than life ethics when making disposition deci-
sions about their embryos.
     For what concerns prospective parents who receive embryos relin-
quished by other people, Collard and Kashmeri (2009) illustrate that life
94                                                          Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

ethics and kin ethics are differently combined in the approach by embryo
receiving parents of their population. In fact, receiving parents seem to be
still moved towards these embryos by a life ethics, as they declare to be
interested in preserving “life” of embryos. Nevertheless, they result less
keen to maintain close live kin relationship with “placing” parents and
biological siblings.
     Other studies about prospective parents using already cryopreserved
embryos in the UK compare the way in which these parents relate to do-
nors to the ways in which infant adopting parents relate to children’s bio-
logical parents (McCallum 2009) and the ways in which parenting criteria
change for embryo receiving parents and infant adopting parents
(Widdows and MacCallum 2002). The main result of such studies is that
less interest for donors is demonstrated by embryo receiving parents than
the interest in biological parents shown by infant adopting parents and
that pregnancy constitutes a crucial biological argument that supports
activation of kinship for embryo receiving parents.
     The accurate contribution of these studies opens up interesting routes
for more exhaustive research about embryo reception, which is presently
lacking especially because of the low number of people who address do-
nor embryo conception in comparison to the number of those who ad-
dress single gametes conception; the prohibition of such procedure by
many legislations; the difficulties that are encountered in many countries
and centres to support this practice; and the relatively recent appearance
of “embryo adoption” programmes. Further research on this topic is
strongly needed for a more comprehensive understanding of kinship for-
mation processes in contemporary societies.


4. Methodology
    This paper draws on a four-year research project (2007-2011) focusing
on Italian residents in different stages of their reproductive experiences
abroad. This investigation was based on multi-sited ethnographic work
(Marcus 1995) and comprised recorded in-depth interviews and life sto-
ries, unrecorded informal conversations, blogs, on-line diaries and fo-
rums. It finally involved, in particular, 24 cases, among which there are
single women, heterosexual and same-sex couples living in different parts
of Italy. Unfortunately, no single men have responded to any call to par-
ticipate in this study. Informants were contacted through specialized
websites and online forums, homosexual family associations, word-of-
mouth advertising and during a 1-month ethnographic stay in a private
fertility centre in Barcelona, where incoming Italian patients were inter-
viewed. When possible, both partners were interviewed separately; in
other cases, they participated jointly in interviews, and some women in
heterosexual relationships were interviewed without their partners. Rec-
orded interviews were held at people’s homes, at the author’s home and
Zanini                                                                  95
in the fertility centre while informal conversations occurred in various
circumstances. All people had an experience of donor conception repro-
ductive assistance at one point in their life.
    For the purpose of this paper, two of these cases are especially pre-
sented in details, as they illustrate how two similar experiences of embryo
reception may lead to different understandings of embryos within the
reproductive process. The choice of presenting a deep analysis of these
very cases reflects the intention of retracing the process through which
prospective parents may relate and take part to the ontological shift that
characterises gametes and embryos in the context of donor conception
and, in particular, of unpacking the complex intertwining of elements
that characterises different reproductive experiences of donor embryo
reception for procreative purposes.


5. Embryo reception: an affordable and suitable way to
parenthood
    All the people who have taken part in this study consider to become
parents through assisted reproduction only after having gone through
what they describe as a confusing, challenging and sometimes very hard
time when they realised that their chance to have a child through (het-
ero)sexual intercourse was very little or non-existent (because of medical
reasons, marital status or sexual orientation). Turning to assisted repro-
duction corresponds for all of them to engage in a reflection about the
meaning of parenthood and to evaluate in what way ART and donor con-
ception may affect their chance to become parents, both at statistical and
symbolic levels (Becker 2000; Gribaldo 2005; Thompson 2005). In par-
ticular, people embark on a reproductive process where they become
parents through a constant negotiation between every technical and clini-
cal procedure they are proposed or come across and their expectations
about what moral, cultural, biological and social elements might consti-
tute parenthood. Camilla and Michele and Linda do not constitute an
exception. Their cases are presented below as they represent two interest-
ing examples of reproductive strategies where the use of already cryo-
preserved embryos is valued and differently perceived.
    Around the age of 20 Camilla is diagnosed with endometriosis and
learns that she will probably need to address assisted reproduction to
have babies. In 2005, she and Michele receive the news that he presents a
chromosomal translocation, which makes conception very difficult. Alt-
hough being suggested to address immediately donor conception abroad,
Camilla and Michele want to try to conceive with their own gametes.
    Camilla feels that the same kind of relationship should link her and
her husband to their future child and thinks that this might be reflected
genetically in the fact that both or none of them provide their reproduc-
tive cells. The use of donor sperm and Camilla's eggs would have jeopard-
96                                                                   Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

ized her attempt to respect this principle.
    In need of a preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)5, which is not
performed in Italy at the time, Camilla and Michele decide to contact a
well-known fertility centre in Belgium. They fail two treatments of PGD
with their own reproductive cells and turn to donor conception. In the
meantime, they take infant adoption into consideration, but they finally
abandon it, because Camilla is convinced that the pain of infertility may
better be overcome with a pregnancy:

              [In adoption] the main subject is not you, it is the child. And I
          wasn't feeling enough strong to deal with it. […] And we, as a
          couple, were not ready for it. […] I got a picture about it, maybe I
          am wrong, but I got this picture that adoption […] does not repair
          this wound that you have inside. And why? I have seen many
          mums and dads of children from donor conception or from ART
          anyway […] and in front of other people's pregnancies they felt
          healed. […] Then I saw two episodes where...for example my
          aunt, she got an adoption that is really, I mean, she is grateful day
          and night, she has been so happy, she had a national adoption of a
          20 days healthy little-girl […] she had so little problems, my
          cousin is wonderful […]. But when my other aunt has recently got
          pregnant of her second child, she said something stupid about her
          pregnancy […] and the other aunt started crying. And I thought:
          maybe this feeling does never go away.

    Camilla speaks about infertility as a disease and understands pregnan-
cy as an experience that might heal the pain provoked by such a condi-
tion. Prospective parents approaching ART tend to consider pregnancy a
first important success of their reproductive treatments (Thompson
2005). Pregnancy may represent the success of their reproductive project
and hopefully evoke the accomplishment of their parental plan. Moreo-
ver, some women describe it as an experience that rehabilitates their body
as a reproductive body after that infertility has challenged their reproduc-
tive expectations and called into question their perception of gender in
relation to reproduction (Becker 1997; 2000). Camilla is one of them. She
believes that pregnancy might make up for the deep sorrow and the feel-
ing of inadequacy and helplessness that infertility has provoked to her
while infant adoption might not have the same effect.
    Camilla comes to the conclusion that trying to get pregnant with the
use of donor eggs and donor sperm would be a better choice for her than
both infant adoption and sperm donation, as it would guarantee that the
child is equally genetically unrelated to both parents and she would not
be deprived from the experience of pregnancy.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5
  Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) refers to the “screening of cells from
preimplantation embryos before transfer, for the detection of genetic or chromo-
somal disorders” (Zegers-Hochschild et al. 2009).
Zanini                                                                              97
    Linda, on the contrary, does not have the same understanding of
pregnancy and would prefer to access infant adoption rather than seeking
donor conception abroad. At the age of 44, Linda decides to have a baby
as a single mother and, unfortunately, she is excluded from infant adop-
tion by the Italian adoption law, which allows infant adoption only to
heterosexual stable couples.6 Linda puts forwards her understanding of
parenthood as being neither biologically nor genetically defined:

              Well, I deeply believe that parenthood doesn’t have anything
          to do with genetics... moreover I think that the case of children
          who are exchanged in the cradle is something that can happen and
          that until somebody tells you that the one who grew up with you
          as your child is not your child nobody would think it, and I don't
          think that this would lead to love him less than what you do. […] I
          don't consider a donor-conceived child different from your genet-
          ic child, in the sense that a child is a child and that's it, either if
          she/he comes from assisted reproduction, or in a natural way, or as
          an adopted child, a child is a child, in the sense that she/he is
          someone you take care of. […] If could, I would have adopted a
          child in the first place.

     The ban of donor conception in Italy leads Linda to explore the pos-
sibility of seeking reproductive assistance across national borders. Before
leaving for treatments, she collects information about different destina-
tion options in Europe. In the meantime she sees a gynaecologist who
assures her that she may try some treatments implying the use of her own
egg cells. Linda reads statistics about success rates which make her think
that at her age a simple donor insemination would not give her many
chances to get pregnant and that she would need to apply for in vitro fer-
tilisation (IVF).7 Linda likes this option and contacts a fertility centre in
Belgium. In the end she considers it too expensive:

             If I had a lot of money I think I would have tried with my own
          genetic material. But I was forced to choose: I mean, either I did
          one attempt like that and that was it, or, if I wanted to have the
          chance to try at least two times, then I had to try in another way.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6
  Italian law on infant adoption (Law 149, 28th March 2001) identifies only four
special cases where singles can access infant adoption - excluding the case of
death of one spouse after adoption has been already authorised. These include
cases where (1) a parentless minor is linked to an adult by kinship or by a stable
and long-lasting relationship; (2) the minor is the child of one's spouse; (3) pre-
adoptive foster care is impossible; or (4) the case where a parentless minor pre-
sents a physical, mental or sensory disability.
7
  IVF, In vitro fertilization: “an ART procedure that involves extracorporeal ferti-
lization.” (Zegers-Hochschild et al. 2009). In this procedure, sperm and eggs are
put in a petri-dish, where they are expected to unify and produce embryos.
98                                                           Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

    Like the majority of reproductive travellers, Linda must pay for the
treatments abroad herself, because reproductive assistance abroad is not
covered by national health insurance. As a result, the cost of treatments
affects people's choice not only about possible destination countries (In-
horn et al. 2012; Zanini 2011) but also about the kind of treatment they
decide to apply for. Linda is very much concerned by this dynamic. She
judges the almost € 5000 asked by the centre in Belgium too burdensome
and decides to address another centre in another country and another
reproductive route, hoping in a cheaper offer. She realises that renounc-
ing to the IVF with her own eggs and turning to the use of embryos that
have been left from other people's previous treatments may cost much
less and possibly increase her chances of getting pregnant.
    Managing one’s own or the couple’s budget in order to optimize every
assisted reproductive attempt is crucial to all prospective parents who
address private fertility clinics and to reproductive travellers at the point
that economic factors may deeply affect the technical and symbolic pro-
cess through which people become parents (Inhorn et al. 2012; Zanini
2011). Linda finally turns to a procedure that she calls “embryo adop-
tion” in Czech Republic, finally spending around € 1500, including all the
expenses (i.e. medical exams, travels and accommodation).
    Camilla and Linda eventually aim at getting pregnant using other
people’s reproductive cells, because they believe that this option may
make them parents in an affordable way that all in all respects their un-
derstanding of parenthood. In particular, Linda appreciates embryo re-
ception for its similarities with infant adoption while Camilla finds in em-
bryo reception a response to her need of experiencing pregnancy and of
creating equivalent genetic distance between her, her husband and their
children.


6. Embryos as kinship carriers
    The decision by Camilla and Linda results in the transfer into their
womb of embryos which are created through IVF with the use of other
people's reproductive cells. However, the way in which they think of the-
se embryos and relate to the treatments that they are undergoing is differ-
ent.
    Linda chooses a procedure that consists in using relinquished embry-
os which are cryopreserved and stored in a clinic in Czech Republic and
calls this practice “embryo adoption”. This choice recalls the experiences
described by Collard and Kashmeri (2009; 2011) where “embryo adop-
tion” is a specific programme that proposes the use of embryos that are
relinquished by prospective parents for other prospective parents’ family
building projects. Nonetheless, Linda’s reproductive treatment is not ad-
vertised in such terms by the fertility clinic that she addresses and Linda
is the responsible for this calling. Interestingly, though, she is not moved
Zanini                                                                             99
towards these embryos by a “life ethics” but by the affordability and ac-
cessibility of this procedure in comparison to others. Differently from the
people interviewed by Collard and Kashmeri, Linda does not think of
these embryos as of “potential preborn children” (Collard and Kashmeri,
2011, 308) to bring to life and does not share the decision by the Italian
Ministry of Health to call such embryos “neglected embryos”. When I
meet Linda after her first successful treatment with cryopreserved donor
embryos in Czech Republic, she is very clear on this point:

             An embryo is nothing, and it is me saying that and I have one
         in my belly, but it is a clot of cells. According to me “life” is some-
         thing else.

    Although Linda does not consider embryos as living human beings,
she has multiple feelings about embryos representing her chance of be-
coming mother. One day Linda is told by the centre in Czech Republic
that two cryopreserved blastocysts are ready for her treatment. In embry-
ology, blastocyst represents a certain stage of embryonic development
that corresponds to an embryo of around 150 cells after approximately
five days from egg fertilisation (Concise medical dictionary 2010). Pro-
spective parents are often very eager of information about the embryos
they will be transferred (Thomspon 2005; Gribaldo 2005) and the stage
of development of embryos is something they may want to know. After
being told about the availability of embryos for her treatment, Linda feels
so much that her own reproductive process has started as to feel already
pregnant:

             Well, the third of December I got the e-mail saying: “There
         are two blastocysts”...that are extremely small things, but, in my
         head, it was as if I was pregnant from that moment. In the same
         day, then, in the night I had a phone call with a friend of mine
         who was telling me that she was pregnant and I told her: “me
         too!”

   Some months later, though, Linda gets the same embryos transferred
and does not feel that seeing these embryos generates a sense of mother-
hood:

              I saw my blastocysts, because they let you see them. They told
         me: “these are your blastocysts” and I said, laughing: “They are
         really nice!”, because you only see two small dots in the fog. No
         instinct of maternity turned on in me, nothing at all... you see two
         little dots. That’s it.

    The difference made by Linda between considering herself pregnant
and developing an “instinct of maternity” in front of the embryos that she
will be transferred sheds light on the meaning that she attaches to embry-
100                                                               Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

os in her own reproductive experience. On the one hand, in fact, ac-
knowledging the existence of the embryos for her treatment leads Linda
to project herself into pregnancy, which she considers the next step of her
reproductive experience. On the other hand, this is not sufficient to make
her feel a mother, as the reproductive process that she has undertaken has
not come to an end yet.
    Moreover, as seen, she defines parenthood according to intentionality,
love and care rather than by genetics or pregnancy. Linda values embryos
in the same way in which she values reproductive cells and pregnancy for
the indispensable place these occupy within the reproductive process that
she has undergone and confers all of them the power to lead her to
parenthood. On the contrary, she does not think of embryos as of her
own children-to-be since she does not perceive the ontology of embryos
as being related to personhood. Embryos are rather understood as neces-
sary steps towards kinship formation.
    Consequently, Linda's reference to her treatment as to “embryo adop-
tion” seems to evoke infant adoption in relation to the non-genetic ties
that will link her to her donor-conceived children and to the model of
parenthood that is relevant to her.
    Camilla and Michele make three attempts of assisted reproduction
with embryos created with other people’s reproductive cells and, in par-
ticular, two with ad hoc embryos and one with embryos which are stored
in a fertility centre in Spain. They do not do it for “life ethics” either,
since they do not attribute “life” to in vitro fertilised embryos. Instead,
Camilla places the boundaries of “life” in other moments of embryonic
development:

               Having a child in your womb. […] Everyone has his own lim-
          its, science has 14 days, Catholic people have the moment of con-
          ception, to me [...] from the moment in which the embryo has im-
          planted into the uterus it is life.

    A the moment of implantation8, which is also the moment in which
pregnancy can first be technically detected and medically confirmed, the
ontology of embryos changes for Camilla from being the development of
the combination of reproductive cells into potential living human beings.
People’s concern about embryos possibly being and meaning “life” refers
to public debates going on in Italy, where a growing form of “vitapolitics”
(Hanafin 2006) mobilises embryos to ontologically signify “life” in rela-
tion to immortality and survival and embryos are recognised rights as un-
born coming citizens (Hanafin 2006; 2007; Fenton 2006).
    When it comes to experience, though, Camilla finds that blastocysts
have some human character even before being implanted in the womb:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8
  Implantation means “the attachment of the […] embryo to the lining of the
uterus” (Concise Medical Dictionary, 2010).
Zanini                                                                        101

             And then [the doctor] showed us [the blastocysts] on the
         monitor and this was the first time we saw them and, I swear, see-
         ing blastocysts is striking because, I don’t know […] They make
         something to me that...they seem already human, I don’t know
         how to explain it, [...] they have some aesthetic consistency, […]
         and my God, when I saw them on the monitor, I said... well, it
         seemed to me that they were staring at me. It really seemed they
         were staring at me.

    Linda and Camilla show that prospective parents may have very dif-
ferent reactions in front of embryos and especially in relation to their be-
longing to the domains of life, humanity and kinship.
    None of them openly addresses the question of embryonic person-
hood (Thompson 2005, 250) but they both state that embryos outside the
womb are not “life”. However, the ontological nature of embryos remains
different to their minds as they do not agree about the very moment in
which embryos shift their status from cells into “life” and about embryos
in relation to humanity. Camilla argues that embryos turn into “life” at
the moment of implantation in the womb but she recognises some kind of
human character in the embryos that reach a certain stage of development
even outside the human body. On the contrary, Linda never refers to em-
bryos as “life” or human entities and refuses to do so.
    In the meantime, both Camilla and Linda value embryos as potential
kinship carriers insomuch as their use may lead to the accomplishment of
their reproductive plans and parental projects.
    The very process through which each embryo created with other peo-
ple’s reproductive cells produces kinship, though, is a concern for pro-
spective parents, who elaborate on this point especially taking into ac-
count the “history” of such embryos and of the people who provided the
reproductive cells.


7. Disambiguating kinship
    Linda feels comfortable in referring to the treatment that she has un-
dergone as to an “embryo adoption” without knowing who were the
people who provided the gametes. Differently, Camilla changes her atti-
tude towards using embryos created with other people's reproductive
cells according to who these people are and to the ways in which embryos
are made available. She applies three different terms to what she per-
ceives as three possible scenarios that prospective parents choosing this
option may confront. These terms are “double donation”, “embryo dona-
tion”, and “embryo adoption”. Camilla distinguishes these practices on
the basis of the following principles: whether the people who provide the
reproductive cells have undergone reproductive treatments themselves or
not; whether other embryos created with the same people’s reproductive
102                                                            Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

cells have been already used for procreative purposes or not; and whether
embryos are stored in fertility clinics or not yet created at the moment in
which prospective parents decide to enter treatments.
    Camilla calls “double donation” a programme in which prospective
parents approach a fertility clinic where an egg-donor is recruited to pro-
vide eggs for fertilisation with donor sperm and ad hoc embryos are made
available for possible immediate transfer and/or for cryopreservation and
future transfer. With “embryo donation” she refers to the possibility for
prospective parents to access the embryos that have been cryopreserved
by other prospective parents during what she calls a “double donation”.
Finally “embryo adoption” is the term that she uses to allude to prospec-
tive parents who receive embryos that have been created during the as-
sisted reproductive treatments of other prospective parents with their
own reproductive cells or with donor gametes.
    Camilla and Michele exclude the last option and address the other
two in different moments of their reproductive experience, travelling first
to Belgium and then to Spain and to Czech Republic. When I ask Camilla
where the cryopreserved embryos that she is transferred in the fertility
centre in Spain come from she answers:

          Ours is an embryo donation with cryopreserved embryos, be-
      cause they come from a donor who did egg sharing, so probably
      half of the eggs had gone to a couple who had fresh embryos with
      the sperm of the husband, while the other half were fertilised with
      sperm from the sperm bank by the fertility centre, which kept
      them stored and gives them away for double donations. […]
      When I started reasoning about it I had thought that taking em-
      bryos from another couple was more...ethical, let’s say. It made me
      feel better, instead of having an egg-donor […]. But then there are
      other problems coming up like […] you set your mind on the idea
      that your child has siblings around, who are 100% blood relatives.
      According to me this would have been difficult, psychologically I
      mean, in the sense that... in order to make me feel better I would
      have put my child in a messy position. And then those who under-
      go assisted reproduction have always problems, so there was much
      more chance to run into […] a woman with endometriosis like me,
      so I was a bit afraid.

    According to Camilla, the embryos that she and Michele are given in
Spain have been created by the fertility centre from donor eggs and donor
sperm that had never been combined together before, with the purpose
of cryopreserving them for upcoming prospective parents. Interestingly,
these embryos cannot be called ad hoc embryos nor relinquished embry-
os. Camilla prefers this option to the possibility of getting some embryos
which were relinquished by other prospective parents and perhaps creat-
ed with these people’s own gametes.
    In fact, Camilla is afraid that the embryos which have been relin-
Zanini                                                                   103
quished by other couples may share their genetic material with other ex-
isting embryos or children. Moreover, she does not feel comfortable with
the fact that the embryos had been produced for the reproductive inten-
tion of other prospective parents. On these bases, Camilla imagines the
potential children resulting from implanting these embryos to have some
genetic siblings somewhere and to share with them some sort of family
history. Consequently, she evaluates that the option of getting an embryo
that was left over by another couple would put the child possibly result-
ing from that embryo in a complex psychological condition and in a diffi-
cult position in relation to potential existing siblings and finally chooses
against it. Moreover, she fears that the child may have some bad health
condition if resulting from reproductive cells by infertile prospective par-
ents under treatment.
     Drawing on the assumption that making children is, for parents, to be
recognised as parents (Bestard et al. 2003) and that fertility centres are
places where parents are made (Thompson 2005) through a complex
combination of practices, symbols, technologies, performances, knowl-
edges and actors, we may say that considering a particular procedure not
suitable for the development of one’s children is probably not satisfactory
for the production of parents either. The choice by Camilla and Michele
reflects, in fact, their preference for a reproductive experience that bene-
fits as much as possible from the enactment of biomedicalized anony-
mous donor conception which aims at disambiguating kinship relation-
ships among actors involved in the reproductive process by keeping them
at distance and mediating their relationship to each other. Fertility cen-
tres play an important role of mediation between donors and recipients
(Orobitg and Salazar 2005), since they act as warrants of reciprocal relia-
bility and anonymity (where necessary) and promote a process of de-
substantialisation and re-substantialisation (Bestard 2004) of gametes. To
describe this effect, Irene Théry (2011) proposes the expression don d'en-
gendrement (gift of begetting) to highlight that what is given away by do-
nors and taken on by prospective parents in the process of donor concep-
tion is not only reproductive cells, but rather the chance of giving birth to
and fathering a child through the use of donor’s reproductive cells.
     Camilla and Michele opt for a procedure that, although involving the
use of stored embryos, emphasises the role of the fertility centre in the
creation of these embryos, resetting to zero any parental intention on the
part of those who provided reproductive cells and counting on two anon-
ymous donors whose gametes had never been combined for any repro-
ductive purpose before. Camilla and Michele choose on purpose a proce-
dure that excludes the presence of other potential prospective parents
promoting the production of these embryos. Before and after this experi-
ence in Spain, they did and are going to do the same accessing what Ca-
milla calls a “double donation” first in Belgium and then in Czech Repub-
lic. In all these attempts they aim at applying the same kinning strategies
(Howell 2006) instead of adventuring into the field of re-negotiating kin-
104                                                           Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

ship relationships, which is, to their mind, peculiar of infant adopting
practices.
    Especially, Camilla and Michele do not want to exclude donors from
their reproductive story, but rather to save for them the auxiliary role of
generous and indispensable people who provided the reproductive cells
for their parental project. Camilla is aware that donors might have other
children on their own and that other children might have been born
thanks to their donation. Although declaring herself ready to mother a
child who is genetically related to two anonymous donors, she judges too
difficult to mother a child who comes from an embryo that has been cre-
ated by another couple of prospective parents. Moreover, elaborating on
the genetic ties that may link her own donor-conceived children to do-
nors' own children and children who have possibly been born from their
donation, Camilla concludes that she would be comfortable to mother
children who are genetically linked to other children born from either of
the donors but not from both donors at the same time.
    By doing this, Camilla seems to imagine a sort of scale of potential in-
tensity of kinship relatedness that may be possibly brought about by em-
bryos. Such a scale is based on the degree of overlapping on a given sub-
ject or embryo of elements that may constitute kinship relationships and,
in particular, she identifies two of such elements: reproductive parental
intention and genetic relatedness. In this scale, relinquished embryos rep-
resent the highest degree of kinship relatedness as they embody the re-
productive parental intention of two previous prospective parents and are
possibly genetically linked to them and their offspring. Ad hoc embryos,
instead, are created by will of prospective parents and are genetically re-
lated to people who do not have other offspring together. In Camilla's
terms, these embryos carry less intense kinship ties and are easier to kin
to prospective parents.
    The elaboration of such scale confirms Collard and Kashmeri’s find-
ing that “the circulation of genetic material does not automatically make
kinship relations nonexistent” (2011, 319). On the contrary, it may make
siblingship appear even among people who do not know each other
and/or whose binding tie is not legally recognised. Camilla and Michele’s
reaction to that is to put into action a strategy that does not diminish the
chances that their donor-conceived children have genetic siblings some-
where but rather limits the intensity of the ties that can relate their donor-
conceived children to other children. In addition, they exclude to use
embryos that have been created after the parental intention of other pro-
spective parents as they perceive that a kinship-like tie is potentially pre-
sent between these embryos and those people.
    Camilla and Michele do not experience the presence of donors as
non-existent as such and rather embody the “relation of non-relations”
described by Monica Konrad (2005) in her work on anonymous egg do-
nation in the UK. In fact, Camilla and Michele acknowledge the existence
of donors both in their own perception of reproduction and in the family
Zanini                                                                  105
and personal history of their children. However, the anonymity of dona-
tion makes the relationship between them and the donors a “non-
relation” as it is based on reciprocal images of each other (Jackson 2002;
Orobitg and Salazar 2005). Camilla finds that although anonymity is re-
spected, in what she calls “embryo adoption” the narrative presence of
previous prospective parents would be too invasive and powerful, and the
non-relationships to them too full of kinship symbolic meanings to be
disambiguated by their own reproductive process, parental intentions and
kinning practices.


8. Conclusions
    The case of Linda and that of Camilla and Michele suggest that the
ways in which prospective parents approach embryo reception shall be
put in relation with one’s reproductive experience and with the under-
standing of kinship and assisted reproduction that one has developed
along the way.
    In both cases, in fact, the resort to already cryopreserved embryos is
depicted as a second or third option in comparison to other existing re-
productive practices. First of all, the choices by Linda, Camilla and
Michele show that the economic aspect of reproductive practices shall
not be overlooked as a side-effect of transnational reproduction, as it may
determine the practice that people choose and the strategies that they put
into action to make sense of it in relation to their parental project. More-
over, people’s preference for other reproductive practices may guide their
understanding of embryo reception. In particular, Linda shows that her
appreciation for infant adoption, which is prevented to her as a single
woman, provides her with convincing arguments for deeming embryo
reception an appropriate way to parenthood. Reminding adopting par-
ents' experience, Linda evaluates that parenthood is especially activated
by intentionality and care.
    On the contrary, Camilla and Michele reject what they call “embryo
adoption” for the affinities that it has with infant adoption, a procedure
that they do not want to address. Specifically, Camilla accepts embryo
reception insofar as it responds to two of the main requirements that she
demands to reproductive practices: producing pregnancy as a way to
overcome the suffering provoked by infertility, and generating
parenthood. Especially, Camilla judges that kinship relationships pro-
duced by the use of embryos which have been relinquished by previous
prospective parents would be difficult to disambiguate in terms of paren-
tal intention, genetic relatedness and family history. In fact, she makes
room for donors in her reproductive experience by choosing to transfer
ad hoc embryos. With this practice she removes previous parental inten-
tions by other prospective parents, scatters genetic relationships among
different donors whose anonymity and distance is warranted by the fertili-
106                                                         Tecnoscienza - 4 (1)

ty centre and cuts out for them a small, although important, place within
her own and her child's family history. All these strategies are especially
common to gamete recipients, although they may be partially shared with
adopted parents too.
    Using the terms of reference proposed by Roberts (2007), it can be
said that neither Linda nor Camilla and Michele address embryo recep-
tion inspired by life ethics. Instead, the arguments that especially Camilla
moves are indeed ascribable to kin ethics. Her choice is, in fact, driven by
the attempt to reduce the risk of ambiguous kinship relations by selecting
the circumstances in which the embryos were produced. The understand-
ing of embryo reception as a medical practice (and not only as a family
building strategy like adoption) and the emphasis on the producers of
gametes as donors (and not as previous prospective parents) help Camilla
to keep at distance the people who are genetically related to the embryos
that she is using for her own parental plan.
    The way in which Linda makes reference to embryos does not support
life ethics either. Moreover, it cannot be said that she is concerned about
possible kinship relations between the embryos that she has been as-
signed and donors or previous prospective parents. Although not being
ontologically understood as potential children or donors’ kin, these em-
bryos represent for Linda the starting point of her own parental experi-
ence. Differently, Camilla recognises the humanity of the embryos that
she is transferred, even if she does not consider them human life in itself.
Both these circumstances show that an understanding of embryos which
is distant from life ethics does not prevent people from considering em-
bryos symbolically relevant for the development of human life and the
achievement of their reproductive goal.
    The analysis of these two cases ultimately highlights that an account of
the ways in which prospective parents address embryo reception may
provide additional knowledge on how the circulation of embryos in the
context of assisted reproduction is perceived by all actors involved. The
result of such analysis supports Blyth and colleagues’ (2011) conclusion:
there is no such thing as a unique model of reference for the understand-
ing of embryos circulation. This paper shows that both donor gametes
and infant adoption provide significant arguments for people to make
sense of reproduction with embryos created by other people's gametes;
that the assimilation of this practice to the one or the other depends on
people's attitude towards reproductive practices as a whole; and that the
socio-economic condition of prospective parents shall be taken into ac-
count as a possible driving motive, especially if this practice is addressed
in a context of cross-border reproductive care.
Zanini                                                                             107
Acknowledgments
     I want to express all my gratitude to the participants in this study, who volun-
tarily shared their reproductive experience with me. I also want to thank Manuela
Perrotta for being an extremely solicitous and supportive editor and the reviewers
for their helpful comments and suggestions.


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