Maternity representations in the Romanian normative area. Communist reminiscences and postmodernity.

Teodorescu, Adriana

1 Introduction. Cultural-Semiotic Reading Proposal of Reality Representation through Law

The legal area of a country is a propitious environment to study the present socio-cultural representations of some important aspects of social life. More precisely, this is an environment in which we may observe some tendencies of configuring the social reality, fact that is decided explicitly and also implicitly by a country regarding what is desirable about one matter or another, about ideals concerning these matters, as well as the strategies of controlling what could hinder the performance of this legal standard. The first decision is contained in the mere principle of stating the law and it refers to the political passing from the private to public area. The mere entrance in the legal sphere of one reality element supposes the assumption that that element must be subject of entering a norm--a norm of comprehension, interpretation and functioning, a norm that has validity (as being mandatory to respect and as stipulated rights) in the entire country. Actually, the law/norm contains two significant operations of transforming the reality. Reality standardization--meaning being part of a formula that may explain all occurrences in which the law project may be, a formula that states the trust in repetitive social phenomena--and, of course, based on the first operation, reality normalization--meaning the institution of a reality model and, reciprocal, valorization of this model as being reality and more the normality (defined by the differentiation from pathologic, morbid, and other vectors of deviation) (1). The hidden claim of any law consists in the fact that it may detect reality, represent it and, last but not least, bring it into the possibility of realizing the maximum (ideal of a well organized reality). On the other hand, reality institution is motivated by the fragility, the impulse of de-structuring a portion of reality that is desirable to be part of a law. That is precisely why the law states the sanctions for the cases where it is broken or, rephrasing, the body of the law is known to being limited in the first place.

In its own way, the legal area functions as a matrix of representation--the process of generating some image-representations, product-representations (2). This is a trigger for representations situated on other levels of reality--personal, artistic, social level etc. Moving forward to our interest in this research, legal representation of maternity influences other maternity representations: social, personal, collective, artistic, favoring some propensities to traditional maternity representations or representations that would be rather part of (post)modernity and, reversely, disfavoring others. The relative extensive circulation of these normative maternity representations should determine a high research interest, as it is supposed that they are to be instilled in many ways in the conception of a people on maternity at a certain point and they are to act, generally speaking, even weakly as an instrument of evaluation of other non-legal representations. On the other hand, it is necessary to state that the report of forces and influence is never directed only from the upper to lower level, from political to personal, but also in the reversed order. The first type of report--from upper to lower level is the one that may be studied during the time of production (the researcher may detect the mechanisms through which the report is activated), while the other type is less detectable on the present axis and it is rather related to cultural archaeology.

We are to analyze two elements that are related to the Romanian normative area of maternity during the last several years, elements that raised some controversies: assisted human reproduction and psychological counseling in case of abortion. We are not concerned with the legal environment from a pure political perspective but we are to approach this matter from a sociological point of view, which finds in political formulas a great occasion to meditate on the social articulations of ideas and socio-cultural practices of maternity. Thus, we may say that we approach the text of the law as if it were any other socio-cultural product (press articles, TV shows), without pretending to bring into discussion the real situation of abortions or of assisted human reproduction. Therefore, we are not concerned too much with the area of social politics. The law, in its two forms, is to be analyzed in a non-exhaustive manner, as a means of coding maternity reality, as a form of emphasizing some ideals and some socio-cultural fears concerning this matter, and also of the possible conceptual implications on maternity.

We are going to investigate elements of the laws that concern maternity, such as the explicit text (the used type of the text, beyond the restraints of the legislative rigors, formulas, privileged collocation, referring to maternity and which may betray the adherence to some principles regarding the due relationship with maternity), submerged social narratives--conceptions on reality of maternity that are not actually present in the text but which constitute a background on which laws are grafted and which are considered to be shared by all citizens of the country (3), being instilled with judgments of value (good/bad)--but also by the dynamics of the actors appointed by the law as being responsible for its deployment (responsible, intermediate organisms etc.). The relationship between the explicit discourse of the law and the submerged social narratives is going to be useful for examining law objectives and the manner of management (textually and as a proposed solution) the tension series between visibility and non-visibility, between objective-strategic assumption and context of assumption, between the intended result of law adoption and the possible impact (anticipative construction whom the interaction between the two types of discourse, explicit and implicit, transforms into reading strategy of the law).

We are to discover that both forms of rate-setting maternity present structural incoherence from an insufficient cultural elaboration of this social and personal-human dimension. We also observe that, although being almost simultaneous and spatial-economical, the two forms develop impossibilities of functioning together, contradicting each other as prime discourse, and, moreover, as submerged discourse even in their starting and legitimating points. This fact takes place, because beyond each of the two legislative occurrences there are two different cultural paradigms.

2. Psychological Counseling during the Pregnancy Crisis

The first law that requires our analysis--a legislative proposal from spring 2012 to establish and organize functioning counseling units/cabinets in what was called "pregnancy crisis"--is nowadays a failed law. More precisely, it was rejected by the Romanian Senate in September 17, 2012, and in March 2013 it was also rejected by the Chamber of Deputies (4).

In a nutshell, the content of the law was referring to the women obligation to receive psychological counseling in a medical environment with certain credentials in case women desired to abort until the term established by the law. Planning at least one session with a woman, the psychologist should have presented the potential mother the medical and psychological risks at which she is exposed in an abortion procedure, presenting her photos or videos of the abortion procedure, and also visualizing the eco with the embryo. The woman would have to wait (or, more exactly, to meditate on the information) five days and if however she would have wanted to give up her pregnancy, the psychologist would have given her the certificate without which the abortion would have not been possible either in private medical system or in the state medical system.

Although the various feminist movements of female emancipation have signaled the political sub-representation in politics and the negative consequences of this fact concerning the accordingly approaching of matters that regard mostly (housework, raising children) or exclusively (pregnancy, birth, menopause etc.) women, here is a case of a law co-initiator woman, law that, paradoxically, puts implicitly the blame on women that would desire to abort and not to give birth to an unwanted child. This is the case of the depute of the Democrat Liberal Party, Sulfina Barbu. The other initiator, being part of the same party, is Marian Dugulescu. They motivated their proposal by the great number of abortions in Romania (over 22 billions between 1958-2008), by the fact that a number of young women uses this procedure in case of their first pregnancy (5) and by the fact that the abortion decision doesn't reflect woman's desire to give up to their pregnancy but a form of social restrain, pressure to which woman responds in this way, being given the fact that she doesn't have enough time of thinking. The negative consequences of abortion are stated (immediate--intense bleeding, infection; later--sterility, following premature pregnancies, risk of uterine cancer, and psychic consequences--guilt, post-partum syndrome, emotional instability etc.). Some solutions are proposed as alternatives to abortion--placing children in maternal houses administrated by nongovernmental organizations and adoption (which is said to be accomplished much easier). The fetus is almost everywhere named child and embryo is considered a person with the same rights (of donation, inheritance etc.) from the moment of conception (6).

2.1. Maternity Psychologization or between the Question Liberty and Unique Response Requirement

The submerged social narrative is double here. Besides from the fact that a child is always good, under all circumstances--on the individual level the child is not socially corrupted, being pure, but also on the inter-individual level the relationship of an adult with the child is beneficent for both (7)--there is a second narrative, specific Occidental, of the benefits of psychology in the everyday life either we talk about serious problems or about managing normal feelings. A theoretician of the social reality Gilles Lipovetsky showed in 2006 that nowadays Occidental society endures a psychologization process (8), supposing the temptation of signifying reality through a psychological grid, the growth of specialist's authority in the psychological area and especially mass culture contamination with notions and reflexes of psychological interpretation. Indeed, the postmodern man manages to cope with the stressful life with difficulty, being in need of a therapy named everything's gonna be all right, it will all sort out, a therapy served as warm bread by the psychologist (person or set of strategies of more or less calming, diminishing existential anxiety). It is clear that the person of psychologist acquires power in the contemporary socio-cultural imaginary and, consequently in the relation with a woman who desires abortion--psychologist who rather counsels her to maintain the pregnancy, power being on the side of the latter. We realize this fact especially when analyzing that the report, induced by the state institutions, is between someone in a crisis, defined by the mere motivations of this law proposal as being susceptible of being under exterior pressure (thus, a weak, vulnerable person) and a representative of state structures--psychologist assigned by the state to bring light in the situation of a woman who doesn't desire to become mother. The law project mentions in vain that the decision would be woman's exclusively, as it is evident that she deals with a priori lack of trust on the behalf of the state. The mere idea of the law project has as a starting point the fact that the woman's first decision to abort is not the best and it is not according to the social desiderates seen as such by the state. Thus the first woman's perception and judgment towards herself, her body, her life and status of mother is considered wrong ("the pregnant woman must be aware of the fact that the unborn has the right to live").

Indeed, if we judge only from the strict perspective of the relationship between what the woman desires and what she decides (relationship that is beyond the sphere of good and bad, respectively of correct/incorrect), it may happen that the decision would be incorrect. Meaning that for the woman to decide to abort not thinking to what she actually wants, not acceding a certain authenticity of personal feelings. But it may also happen that a woman would decide to maintain the pregnancy and this decision would not be according to her desire. If we may speak about the social pressures in order to give up having a child, there are also real pressures, although less accepted and conscious, to have a child. The ideological basis of the law project is revealed.

Another way of undermining and despising woman's will is the content of the process of counseling--watching videos with fetus abortion etc.--a brutal process oriented towards the desirable direction of the state of keeping the pregnancy. This requirement of informing regarding the medical procedure through which the giving up of the fetus is performed is a violation of woman's right (of every man) to know, which also involves what and how much a person desires to know. For instance, in no medical facility the individual is not required to watch images or films with appendicitis surgery, slipped disc, transplant, dental extraction etc. There is a serious confusion between the notion of information (the general knowledge of some aspects that are of interest or affect the individual) and the specialization (detailed and quasi-professional knowledge). Even when not taking into account this confusion there is still the idea that if the state would have desired through this psychological counseling that women would actually be aware of the consequences of their choice, it would have been necessary that they watch images and movies with abandoned children in orphanages--the viable alternative to abortion, as the initiators of the law project pretend. Respecting an objective and neutral demarche oriented towards the woman become patient, the physical and psychological risks of the intervention stated in the law project that should be known should be correlated at least with the birth risks (maternal mortality remains a difficult matter of contemporaneity (9)) if not with the psychological risks of becoming less happy. These are the risks not merely mentioned (10) but they are well-known to researchers (11).

All these happen because the medical and social background of abortion (which--we are going to see--doesn't happen in case of assisted human reproduction where medicalization is raised to the level of primal dimension) are almost completely eluded, persisting only the psychological aspect. The brief referrals to uterine and breast cancer as abortion effects, extremely disputable (12), are inconclusive and peripheral in the argumentative environment of motivating the law proposal. Actually, the psychological counseling, as it is perceived by the state is hypocrite, as it has to act the dialogue woman-counselor (as a negotiation, play of perspective plurality) and not to perform it, considering the woman in a true inferiority of knowledge compared to the counselor. Thus, there is an opposition between the specific questions of a dialogue and the plurality of meanings that may appear and the unique and violent answer: the woman must choose to become mother. It is true that there is not a total obligation, but at least a moral one. We understand from the way of proposing the law that the psychological counseling is identified with an accentuated ideological and propagandistc source: any child is better than no child. It is in the sense of a law to generalize, to standardize, as we mentioned above, but this shouldn't determine limits of liberty, even if it is the case of liberties gained recently by the female part of the citizens.

2.2. The Sublimed Body. "Yes" to the Child, "No" to the Embryo

Psychologization is not the only characteristic of the law project. Another trait, in close connection with psychologization is the sublimation of the body in soul. First of all, this is the case of the fetus' body. Among all the words used in the text of the law (the child, the unborn one), whose idea is the same, as it is said in the counseling bulletin ("fetus is a live human being even from the beginning of its conception") results a true transformation process from body to soul. Fetus and embryo (corporal structures) is considered a baby. The debates on the subject when a fetus starts to become a human person are endless, merely common place, but this fact doesn't serve as an excuse, but accuses the easiness with which rigid significance is granted to this sort of matters by the Romanian law makers. The only method through which women could be convinced to have the children they don't want--a purpose vaguely declared and partly recognized in the text and motivations of the law project--is to consider them a human and spiritual form. The transformation of body into soul is a symbolic process, but which brings into play a manipulation potential. The relationship established between the woman and fetus is not anymore one between the woman and her body, nor between the woman and another body that may become a soul, but this is a relationship between soul and soul. And the woman is not only woman, but mother--woman being named preponderantly mother in the law proposal so that soul requirement is doubled--as self assumption and the other's assumption. Under these circumstances, aborting is equivalent to committing a murder (abortion means ceasing a life and considering those 22 billions abortions human loss), except for the fact that its sanction is not that harsh.

In the imaginary that supports the discourse of this law the body belongs to a classical conceptual paradigm of Christian inspiration. The antagonism between body and soul exists, placing us in dualism and schism between the two, while the body is subordinated from the valuable perspective to the soul, being the vehicle for the soul, a simple instrument that doesn't affect the quality of who is using it. From this point of view, we a far away from the postmodern paradigm of the strong body that corporates the human being (13) and that becomes extreme (14), but, at the same time, machinized, functionalized at its best (15). A paradigm that instills in the submerged social narrative is the law of the assisted human reproduction.

2.3. In the Name of the Father or About Another Female Commodification

The desire of manipulation is pretty clear in expressions such as "a reflection time might change the initial decision to abort, reducing the number of abortions and thus giving the chance to a child to come to this world" (16). It is to be seen that the state objective--reducing the number of abortions--is situated in the sentence before the individual chance for life, not a random aspect at all.

We said that the appeal to psychology and counseling is a mise en scene, a masquerade. We are to reveal more on this matter. After unveiling the masks we discover the figure of the father-State. He is the true counselor, the force that is in action, for the own benefit, through the postmodern cultural formula of necessity of psychology. And this father-State can't be unstuck from its communist history when (using Goya's imagistic metaphor) is was a reversed Saturnian father, as it devoured its sons, throwing them in the world and forcing them to throw other sons in the world. The well-known decree 77 from 1966 that had imposed a forced maternity, along with the entire propagandistic convoy of communist discourses had made history (17). As it seems, that wasn't enough, as the two initiators of the law of psychological counseling reactivate a paternal perspective of the approach of maternity typical for those times (18). If during communism woman was perceived as a being that had the duty to give birth for the patrie, in the Christian religion maternity was and is considered, as Petrina Brown shows in her book (19), a means of exorcizing evil done to the world by the one that had thrown the world into sin--Eva.

In this exaltation of the idea of self sacrifice for the other, for the baby, the communist ideology meets the Christian tradition, highlighting the lack of equality of chances between the woman and the man. Taking into account the alliance between politics and Church (as institution) it has to be noticed that the initiators of the legislative proposal come from the Orthodox background, except for the politicians (Federation of the Orthodox Organizations Pro-vita from Romania, Centre Noua Speranta, Foundation Arsenie Boca etc.) (20). Politicians trust in the expertise of the Orthodox organizations Pro-vita and they extract their arguments to support the necessity of a counseling before the abortion from the cases of the Foundation Pro-vita Medica, Timisoara. The cultural and religious unilaterality of those who signed the law proposal is obvious. They opposed to sign an open letter to Crin Antonescu, president of the National Liberal Party from Romania (21), naming themselves apolitical and democratic organizations in order to suggest the bias of the others. Among the organizations there is ECPI--Euro regional Centre for Public Initiatives, IPP--Institute for Public Policies, CPE--Centre Partnership for Equality, SECS--Society of Sexual and Contraceptive Education, Foundation Pro Women etc. These plead for respecting the women's rights and emphasize the other attempts of pro-Christian organizations to annul the women's right of therapeutic abortion or to determine the legal interdiction of each form of abortion (22).

There is another dimension present in the law proposal that differentiates the political vision as it is revealed by this project, by the Christian traditional vision on maternity without placing them in total contradiction. This dimension, functioning as an intermediate nuance between political and religious and dealing more with the political aspect is commodification (23). The women are treated as goods or, moreover, as generators of social goods--children, on the basis of such a social contract more or less explicit. The cultural-economic paradigm responsible of this status of the woman is, of course, the late capitalism and hyper consumerism, but the social phantasm of continuing the national identity through successive generations of human beings is lost in the darkness of times and it is bound to the mechanism of species survival (24). Nevertheless, the specific rhetoric of our times is that of saving the state (often acquiring nationalist nuances; for instance, the problem is not that the number of people is diminishing on the entire Earth, but the fact that Romanian birth rate is weaker than in the case of Gipsy population), and, by extension, of Terra through children and treating the idea of human reproduction in statistical and economic terms (25). Commodified or not, the etatist perspective on maternity enters frequently in opposition with the individual perspective or group perspective of the same subject, exactly as it is going on with the problem of death attitude (26).

For the Christian religion and especially for the most conservative Orthodox, frightened (27) by feminism, regarded a derived from the natural femininity (28), left by God, maternity may be a form of commodification while we think of a woman become not a capitalist resource, but, forcing the expression, an essentialist resource. In other words, an instrument, which, well used--meaning learned to accept pregnancy, birth as mandatory elements of personal life--is a clear demonstration of the fact that the social aspect is natural at the end of the day and there is an intrinsic order of things that must be respected. Religiously instrumented maternity helps the Orthodox Church to show that reality isn't socially constructed, but divinely. And, last but not least, maternity commodification is useful to Church so that it may reaffirm its power, even if it is the case of a power functioning in vain, unconsciously or inertial.

In a socio-cultural background as it is the Romanian case, the general perception of the Orthodox Church on woman comes to emphasize the political commodification of women and--important to notice--it diminishes the risk of political commodification of the father, man through reactivating, practically and textually, the traditional structures of the family. It is worth lingering a bit over this aspect and observing the fact that the analyzed law is constructed on a true paradox: the fetus has human rights, it is considered a soul (as we have already mentioned) that doesn't belong to the woman, but that, on the other hand, the woman has responsibilities for this soul from the conception moment, while the man, the partner, has no responsibility at all, not being called to participate at the so-called cell of crisis, he isn't taken into account at all. But, if having children is a duty of the citizen for the state, men have to be more present in law projects.

2.4. Brief Conclusions

It may be said, briefly, that the law project concerning establishment of counseling units destined for women that desire to abort contribute to women representation in an outdated, traditional manner and it risks to deepen the inequality of chances between men and women persistent in the Romanian society, through the interpretative abuse of what may be considered the human being and the quality of life (privileging adoption compared to non-life), through diminishing the feminine authority concerning her life and her status (mother, non-mother), through eluding the masculine responsibility and through the political and religious handling of women who should assume their maternity as a duty towards the state and morals. The mere idea of counseling, of giving time to think could be welcome, but not in the context of this law project that establishes an extremely vicious protocol of the dialogue, which hiddens the desire of persuasion in order to keep the child and which has as a side effect de-ontologizing, at the same representation level, the idea of having children, of giving birth to children.

Although this is not the objective of our research, we can't ignore the fact that such a law project may cause more problems than solutions. We may admit, beyond the critics for the pro-giving birth etatist politics of which we have discussed above, that the Romanian state needs politics of enhancing birth rate. But, as Victoria Stoiciu observes in the quoted article, it is tricky how the state would handle the Romanian citizens wanted at all costs, while it doesn't cope well with taking care of the existent citizens (it is significant to analyze the number of emigrants) and it has serious problems in ensuring the necessary infrastructure of growing the number of its citizens (the publicized problem of the diminishing number of kinder gardens and schools, reducing the period of the maternal leave and of the allocated quantum).

3. The Medically Assisted Human Reproduction

In Romania the normative background of medically assisted human reproduction is characterized by indetermination and by multiple searching, in 2003 being in course of clarification. The first legislative proposal, entitled Law project regarding the health of reproduction and medically assisted human reproduction dates back from 2004 and its author is the senator of the Social Democrat Party, Ovidiu Barzoi, which after a long series of examination and re-examination, ways from Senate to the Chamber of Deputies, with waiting periods while being analyzed by evaluating commissions after some intimations at the Constitutional Court, is rejected two years later, in February 9, 2006. In 2009 the second legislative proposal, initiated this time by more senators of the Liberal Democrat Party, is adopted by the Senate, but rejected by the Chamber of Deputies in October 19 2010. In 2011, depute PDL, Sandru Mihaela-loana, proposes a new law on the same subject of medically assisted reproduction. On the 2nd of May 2011 the law is sent to require a point of view of the Government that expresses its reserve towards it (lack of constitutionalization of some articles, the complex of bio-ethical elements, health and educational elements that should be subject of some more ample debates). The initiator withdraws the law project on April 11 2011.

Another law project regarding medically assisted human reproduction with a third donator is registered at the Senate on October 11 2011, Romanian Government being the initiator (approved by the Government) and being debated at the Chamber of Deputies after being adopted by the Senate in 13 March 2012. It is interesting to mention that even in such an unstable legal environment in Romania had taken place programs of fertilization in vitro as in 2011 The national program of fertilization in vitro and embryo transfer (29), realized in order to enhance the reproductive health of which could and continue benefiting infertile couples, married for at least 2 years, without donating oocytes or sperm and with no surrogate mother. The act afferent functioning of the National Program was emitted by the Ministry of Health and published in the Official Monitor on May 31 2011, and for this to be possible the Association SOS Infertility had been fighting (30). Coordination on the national level of the sub-program FIV/ET was ensured by the Institute for Mother and Child Protection "Prof. Dr. Alfred Rusescu". For the accepted couples in the program, the Health Ministry supports part of the necessary costs of a single procedure of medically assisted human reproduction. Another rather interesting aspect is that Mihaela-loana Sandru, who had initiated the law project in 2011 was supported in research work by the Association SOS Infertility that had also the initiative of the subprogram FIV/ET.

Among the principles of the 2011 project and of the national program FIV/ET is that of guaranteeing the human individual and family dignity and it is about respecting the superior interest of the child. Other rights considered to be guaranteed are the information concerning the medical procedures, protection against eugenics, cloning etc. It is to be noticed here that this law is described as being a protective instrument of women rights, exactly as the law examined above. Among the initiators' motivations we find, as in the case of the already analyzed law, the diminishing of birth rate in Romania in the last decades and stating that infertility is an illness that tends to affect more and more the population of the country (1 out of 5 couples are infertile, and there is an yearly growth of 20% in the last five years of couples declared infertile that appeal to techniques of medically assisted human reproduction). In a nutshell, medically assisted human reproduction has two main components: artificial insemination (the embryo is introduced in woman's body through inserting sperm from the partner or donator) and in vitro fertilization (the embryo is produced exogenous woman's body and then introduced in her uterus). Both procedures are preceded by a stage of ovarian stimulation (for producing more ovule), and the second is based on a process of embryo selection so that the embryos that are not introduced in the uterus are cryogenized for another usage or destroyed. Egg cells may belong to the mother or, according to the law from October 2011 and the national programs that are already developed, from a donator (voluntary with no remuneration). There is a real glossary of terms (surrogate, post-mortem reproduction, bearing mother, pre-embryo etc.) in case on the 2011 law and in case of the methodological norms of the mentioned program. Unlike the first case when a single term was used in order to designate different realities (embryo, fetus, child), here the maternity and conception realities seem to be fragmented and to each fragment correspond one or more terms.

3.1. Medical Nemesis. Towards a Post-Medicalization of Maternity?

If in the case of counseling in the cell of crisis psychologization was hidden (as we have seen incomplete and formal) in this case we deal with the submerged narrative of medicalization. At the same time, a solution for maternity issues is found, as the law puts it, through medicine. The etatist imaginary of the necessity of the young generations as numerous as possible but probably also some cultural anxieties specific to postmodernity of extinction of the human species through inhibiting reproductive capacity are the basis of this submerged narrative of medicalized maternity. Fear of the human extinction is often captured by the movies of the popular culture, as it is often illustrated the saving potential of children (31). Nevertheless, the global population is in continuous growth. If in 1950 there were approximate 2,5 milliards people, in 1999, according to ONU, the population has overcome 6 milliards inhabitants, and the estimations are that in 2100 there are going to be 11 milliards people (32). On the other hand, the benefits of medicine over maternity, undeniable in some sectors and contexts, become questionable when they force a baby to come into the world. Especially, as numerous Christian organizations that contest the law of the medically assisted human reproduction reclaim, in vitro fertilization and other similar techniques don't manage by far to solve the problem of diminishing birth rate in Romania or elsewhere.

Being started in modernity, medicalization is a social process that reaches its maximum development in late capitalism. In the specialized socio-cultural literature medicalization was associated with implementing some practices through which there is an attempt to control individuals (33). Among the most significant works there is Ivan Illitch's work written in 197534. Without rejecting the accomplishments of medicine, he crashes a number of myths of the medical sciences and he observes grimly the losses of society and individuals in this process of medicalization. The lack of responsibility towards the individual's health, passivity and adoption of the patient status is one of the fieriest critiques. In a recent article, in 199935, Illitch restates his older concepts, adding new nuances: health supposes a continuous search, being a true mission for the individual of those times and, severely, an obsession, which throws this search in the area of pathology. Besides, health becomes more and more difficult to achieve, as society and medical sciences seem determined to find new and new illnesses, while the engine of this mechanism is the commercial interest.

Among the social processes of medicalization the most frequent ones were medicalization of death (36), of agedness (37), of birth (as a process of expulsion of the fetus). All three have been harshly criticized and nowadays at least concerning birth there are numerous movements that support a coming back to natural (38). Practice, all three medicalizations were known in two stages--one of affirmation and glory, and one as basis and critiques. Someway anachronistic from these three types, reproduction medicalization, with an emphasis on the conception moment, but containing the preparatory stage for conception (preparation, medication etc.) continues to be in the first stage of development. The critiques regarding the assisted human reproduction, apart from the religious ones, on sociological or cultural premises are few (39) and weakly represented in the media, as they are more part of theoretical research. Less are critiques in what concerns the functioning of the assisted human reproduction in the capitalist context, critiques that deal with, possibly, the leeway of medicine towards the financial interests, as, at least in Romania, the majority, if not all the fertilization and in vitro insemination procedures are performed in private medical clinics, being extremely expensive and with a rate of success that doesn't overcome 35%. Cases similar to Sabyc clinic, accused of ovule traffic, were not that loud in the media and left the Romanian public opinion indifferent (40).

For now, the Occident feels the fascination for what the assisted reproductive medicine manages to achieve: nature subjection, reigning over its caprices, while other states are involved in elaborating some national programs of in vitro fertilization and it crystallizes its legislative directions concerning the assisted human reproduction. Medicine is called to fight against infertility and it is accomplished with the help of the state, as infertility is medicalized and, more precisely, pathologized (41). Infertility is considered an illness. By extension, not being able to have children becomes an illness, and this supposes, as we may see from the law project regarding the assisted human reproduction with a third donator that non-birth, female inability to give birth to children, hers or others', could be related to illness and the reverse is possible: a woman, who gives birth, even if it's not her biological child, may redeem her status as ill. And this due to the fact that they consider that a couple may choose to have a child (the woman to be more specific) even using genetic material from the woman of the couple and sperm of a donator, sperm of the man of the couple and oocytes of a donator or, an extreme case, both genetic materials donated. And here, at this point, the sociocultural implications are difficult to evaluate, but they shouldn't be neglected. A bizarre fact that confirms an excessive pathologization of infertility are cases of unknown origin--those that medicine can't figure out, being like a pathological code, treated consequently (see the law recommendations).

Infertility medicalization and enlarging the perspective, as we are going to notice right away, maternity medicalization under the sight of the vigilant and standardized eye of assisted human reproduction could be put under the sign of Nemesis, as the risks for the woman are countless (cancer after administrating medicines for ovarian stimulation, hyper-stimulation ovarian syndrome, multiple pregnancies, abortion, pre-eclampsia etc.), and the fetus isn't spared the high risks of genetic malformations (42), useless risks, as not all such interventions end up having the desired child. Then, the role assumed by medicine is one of force and rupture with tradition, a role of redefining the human values, of fragile lines between health and pathology and it would be a case of postmedicalization, of course. And this is not only because, unlike death medicalization, reproductive medicalization starts and especially reaches its highest point in postmodernism, but also because the mere medicalization substance isn't nowadays unitary, often contradictory, integrand multiple stories, as the one of alternative, allopathic or naturist medicine.

3.2. The Extremely Functionalized Body. Egg Cell, Embryo, Child

An important characteristic of the mentioned above series--egg cell, embryo, child--is that the elements are not of the same ontological nature from the assisted human reproduction perspective. The last term is the most powerfully ontologized, being the product of the first two elements. There are also some other elements of organic nature (sperm etc.), but not yet animated, invalidated in a human paradigm, elements over which the medical power is exercised. We are far away from that expression in the bulletin signed by the counselor and by the woman who wants to abort ("fetus is a human being from the very moment of its conception"), document necessary for the doctor to intervene in case of his patient. We are in another socio-cultural paradigm of the body towards the counseling case in pregnancy crisis. This is the case of the body described (and criticized) by theoreticians of social sciences as Patrick Baudry (43), Alain Corbin, Georges Vigatello (44) or Glennys Howarth (45) and which is defined as over-investing semantically and pragmatically the body so that "the body became more important than our soul, it became more important than our life" (46). And this becoming of the body supposes a transcendence of the usual body, a getting out of its natural limits (47) and its de-spiritualization (48). The Occidental medical practice continues being accused of treating the body through a rupture from the soul. Indeed, in such a cultural paradigm, which, without being the single one, is, most probably, the dominant paradigm, the medical practice only contributes to this emphasis of falling movement, of reducing the soul to the body (49)--a contested movement by some towards the psycho-somatic medicine (50).

The extremely functionalized body goes hand in hand with medicalization of the human reproduction and with the emergence and imposition of the assisted human reproduction as its extreme point (as we have said sharp point). And this is happening, because medicalization empowers towards its maximum the natural possibilities of the body by restoring the lost, vanished functions of a not so good and functioning nature. And since we have reached nature, it must be said that in case of the assisted human reproduction law the imaginary of nature is different from that in case of the counseling law in case of pregnancy crisis. In the first case, woman didn't want children but was pregnant and the state intervened in their decision to give up her pregnancy, considering that, no matter how prepared felt the woman to become mother, the child is precious for the state and it is a gift from nature, from God. In the second analyzed case, the woman can't be with child, and the state decides she should be, taking into account that, no matter what the risks are, the child is precious for the state and since it is not given by the nature, it must be convinced to surrender. The strong nature from the cultural background of the first law is opposed to the weak nature from the second (on which people can intervene). It must be stated that this mechanism of imaginary is overwritten so that it wouldn't be ostentatious and wouldn't reveal too much from a possible structure of manipulation, of individual valorization, even in a sense of woman empowerment. The motivation of organizations that militate for assisted human reproduction programs is the right (not obligation) of the couples to have a child and especially in European countries in which such procedures are well represented legislatively. The child becomes goods, and if we may talk about commodification in this area of imaginary that irrigates, underground, the reasoning for assisted human reproduction, the future child is most affected by commodification. In order to obtain a viable child and to raise this possibility there are products in case of fertilization in vitro, ovarian stimulation, more ovule, more embryos are obtained out of the feminine body, from which only several are implanted in the uterus, from which only one or two would probably develop. The rest of the embryos are residual and treated consequently.

The sub-investing of embryo from the medically assisted human reproduction differs flagrantly from the over-investing the embryo in the same Romanian normative area from the law project for counseling women to obtain more children or less biological (less, as the idea of donator is accepted, which raises multiple ethical problems) and the involved risks (the law doesn't state what is the woman's informed consent), and, on the other hand, discouraging women that, at a certain point, don't desire a child. Both of them may seem reasonable according to the premises, but both carry ethical and conceptual difficulties.

3.3. Brief Conclusions

Apart from those conclusions stated in the previous section, there is a fact that imposes itself as a conclusion and which results from the law analysis regarding the assisted human reproduction, beyond its nuances from various proposals and beyond the lack of actual clearance, is that the law of the medically assisted human reproduction favors some types of maternity and despising other types. The preferred and supported maternity is the desirable maternity, the one that associates a capitalist imaginary regime of desire and ambition, of effort in order to obtain a result--in this case--the child. On the other hand, the biological maternity is devalued, reduced to a function of the organism that may be used according to the wish of the one who detains the body. The woman that donates its ovule becomes mother for a child she isn't going to meet and for which she is required, opposed to the case of psychological counseling not to have the curiosity or right to know who that child is. On a collateral plan, as Sabyc case proves, ovule donation may transform in an ovule business, in the trap of which may fall women with low income, with a weak financial situation or low educational level. At the same time, the situation of the surrogate mother is not that free of dangers. In 2011 law it is said that "The voluntary interruption of the pregnancy may be done according to the law by the carrying mother or by anyone of the beneficiary couple, bearing the caused prejudices". This being said, it may not be exaggerated to present a game of pregnancy concerning the assisted human reproduction. First of all, a game of giving birth (even if the child isn't the biological child of the couple), when the donator woman or/and man is biologized (considered only from the aspect of biological possibilities), then a game of the inheriting child of genetic material, when it is biologized the function of giving birth (case in which we deal with the surrogate mother).

However, the discursive, conceptual and paradigmatic discrepancy between the two analyzed laws is not just obvious, but huge. It demonstrates that maternity continues to be subject of different cultural codes in the context of the same culture, indicating, underground, the women difficulty of conforming to a code or another and the pressure to which they are submitted in assuming the maternal role and in its politicization.

Acknowledgement

This work was possible with the financial support of the Sectoral Operational Programme for Human Resources Development 2007-2013, co-financed by the European Social Fund, under the project number POSDRU/86/1.2/S/64088 with the title "Research & professional training/development programme for the postgraduates in social sciences".

Adriana TEODORESCU, University of "1 Decembrie 1918" Alba Iulia, Center for Historical and Political Research "Iuliu Maniu"

E-mail: adriana.teodorescu@gmail.com

(1) Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Anchor, 1966.

(2) See for the difference between representation as process and representation as product, Paul Ricoeur, La memoire, lhstoire, 'oubli, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 2000.

(3) Social submerged narratives would be those common conceptions about maternity reality (or what is considered to be generally accepted) that are beyond the significances popularized by the law. For example, briefly; having a child is a right (for the law of the assisted human reproduction) and, moreover, a desirable social thing (here all the myths of social continuity through children come into action) or abortion is a way of questioning human dignity and of jeopardizing the psychical state of the pregnant woman etc.

(4) http://www.senat.ro/Legis/Lista.aspx?cod=16636&%20pos=0&NR=b118&AN=2012, last consulted on 09.04.2013.

(5) See the document entitled Exposing the Motives of the Legislative Initiative on the website of the Romanian Senate above.

(6) Exposing the Motives of the Legslative Initiative, p. 4.

(7) Cf.: Paul van Tongeren, The Paradox of our Desire for Children, in Ethical Perspectives 2 (1995) 1, pp. 55-62.

(8) Gilles Lipovetsky, Le bonheur paradoxal. Essa sur la societe d'hyperconsommation, Gallimard, Paris, 2006.

(9) Petrastefan, Mortaltatea materna in contextul social contemporan (Maternal Mortality in the Contemporary Social Context), in Calitatea vietii, year 11, no. 1 -4/2000, pp. 109-121.

(10) Bonnie Rochman, Why Having Kids Is Bad for Your Health, in Time(Health and Family), 11 April 2011, Parentaltate = fercire?(Parenthood=Happiness?) in Psychologies Magazine, no. 58 April 2013.

(11) Cf. Roy F. Baumeister, Meanings of Life, Guilford Press, 1991, Ranae J. Evenson, Robert W. Simon, Clarifying the Relationship between Parenthood and Depression, in Journal of Health and Social Behavior, December 2005 vol. 46 no. 4 341-358.

(12) Cf.: http://www.sfatulmedicului.ro/dictionar-^edical/sindromul-de-hiperstimulare-ovariana-ohss_7199, last consulted on 12.04.2013.

(13) Alain Corbin, Jean-Jacques Courtine, Georges Vigarello (coord.), Hstoire du cops: Tome 3, Les mutations du regard, Le XXe siecle, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 2006.

(14) Patrick Baudry, Le corps extreme. Approche sociologique des conduits a risque, L'Harmattan, Paris, 1991.

(15) Glennys Howarth, Death & Dying. A Sociologcal Introduction, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2007

(16) Exposing the motives of the legislative initiative, p. 4.

(17) Cf.: Ramona Paunescu, Evolutii politice ale matemitatii (Social Evolutions of Matherhood), Polirom, Iasi, 2012, pp. 117-155.

(18) A recent article that approaches again the subject of the negative consequences of the 1966 Decree: http://adevarul.ro/news/societate/video-decretul-mortii-10000-femei-ucise-numele-meternitatii-povestile- tulburatoarefemeilor-obligate-bata-devina-mame-epoca-aur-1_51654bd300f5182b85a327fb/index.html, last consulted on 11.04.2013.

(19) Petrina Brown, Eve. Sex, childbirth and Motherhood through The Ages, Summersdale West Sussex, 2004. Brown talks about the suffering canon through birth imposed by Christianity to the woman, mentioning her diminished identity at birth. See especially p. 60, p. 64, p. 70.

(20) Exposing the motives of the legislative initiative, p. 11.

(21) http://www.centrulfiliaio/images/PDF/scrisoare_deschisa_adresata_domnului_crin_antonescu.pdf, 25 April 2012.

(22) We don't expose all arguments raised against this law project, as we are interested at this point of our research in maternity representation of this legislative proposal. There could be done an entire research only on the impact of this law on public opinion. There are lots of comments on the online media to newspaper articles that were mostly negative, but it is still difficult to state the opinion of the majority, as there are segments of population that don't have access to internet.

(23) Term is taken from the Anglo-Saxon language, designating, in a capitalist paradigm those attitudes and behaviors through which people are considered objects of consumption.

(24) Zygmunt Bauman, Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992, p. 90.

(25) Cf. Victoria Stoiciu, Poltici de naalfate: despre clasa, rasa si biopoltca (Politics of Nativity: on Class, Race and BioPoiitics), in CriticAtac, 29 January, 2013.

(26) Cf. Roy F. Baumeister, Op. cit., p. 362. The socio-psychologist says that the social problem of death contradicts the individual problem of death. Society wants to replace as soon as possible people who are not useful anymore, while the individual needs to feel unique and irreplaceable.

(27) There are many examples, starting with the priests' religious discourse during their religious services to the content of the Christian articles and Christian mass culture, pop Orthodoxism if such an expression is permitted. Cf. http://www.razbointrucuvant.ro/2011/05/10/feminismul-si-pervertirea-feminitatii-cu-parintii-epifanie-teodoropulos-si- nicolaetanase-intr-un-stil-putin-mai-nonconformist/, last consulted on 11.04.2013.

(28) For a detailed presentation of considering woman from the natural perspective, see Elisabeth Badinter, Le conflt: la femme et la mere, Flammarion, 2010.

(29) http://www.legex.ro/Norma-Nr.0-din-27.05.2011 -112692.aspx, Act Published in Monitorul Oficial Nr. 378-31 May 2011, last consulted on 13.04.2013, http://www.ms.ro/?pag=62&id=9008, last consulted on 13.04.2013.

(30) See www.infertilitate.com (last consulted on 13.04.2013).

(31) Cf. Chlldren of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuaron).

(32) Cf.: Frederick F. Cartwright, Michael Biddiss, Dsease and History, Diane Pub Co, 2000.

(33) The fact that the medical discourse is a power discourse was emphasized in 1954, referring to the psychic illness: Michel Foucault, Malade mentale et personnalte, 1954. Cf.: Bryan S. Turner, Medcal Power and Social Knowledge, Sage, London, 1987.

(34) Ivan Illitch, Nemess medicale, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1975.

(35) Ivan Illitch, Un facteur pathogene predominant. L'obsession de la sante parate, in Le monde diplomatique, mars 1999, p. 28.

(36) The critique of classical thanatology against de-personalization of dying and estranging the dying person from the family. Cf. Louis-Vincent Thomas, Mort et pouvoir, Editions Payot & Rivages, Paris, 1999, Philippe Aries, LHomme devant la mori, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1977

(37) Cf.: Elias, Norbert, La soltude de mourants (traduit de l'allemand par Sibylle Muller) suivi de Veillir et mourir, queques problemes sociologiques (traduit de l'anglais par Claire Nancy). Christian Bourgois Editeur, 1998.

(38) Parenting philosophies such as attachement parenting, which discourages medical interventions during birth, considering that they could bring the affective rupture between mother and baby. Cf.: Judith Warner, Perfect Madness. Motherhood in the Age of Anxety, Riverhead Trade, New York, 2006.

(39) Cf.: David le Breton, Anthropologe du corps et modernte, Presses Universitaires de France, 1990. According to Breton, the model of the machinized body is the one that explains mostly the proliferation of assisted human reproduction.

(40) For more information: http://www.realitatea.net/idosarul-sabyc-inchisoare-cu-executare-pentru-medicii-vinovati-de- trafic-deovule_1052704.html, last consulted on 31.01.2013, http://www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/sentinte-fara-precedent-medici- condamnatipentru-trafic-de-ovule-1011047.html, last consulted on 31.01.2013, http://www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/israelieni- suspectati-de-traficcu-ovule-fara-pasaport-860058.html, last consulted on 31.01.2013, http://www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/sefii-de-la-sabyc-ca-laauschwitz-860030.html, last consulted on 31.01.2013, http://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/eveniment/clientii-clinicii-sabyc-isi-vor-primiinapoi-ovulele- si-spermatozoizii.html, last consulted on 31.01.2013.

(41) See also the campaigns of the SOS Infertility Association, "Infertility is an Illness", http://infertilitate.com/category/campaniainfertilitatea-este-o-boala-sezonul-trei/, last consulted on 13.04.2013.

(42) http://www.sfatulmedicului.ro/Reproducerea-umana-asistata/complicatiile-tehnicilor-de- reproducereasistata_1170#Riscuri_pentru_viitoarea_mama, last consulted on 12.04.2013, http://www.csidio/famiry/fertilizarea-in-vitrorisc-de-malformatii-genetice-la-bebelusi-5121246/, last consulted on 12.04.2013. http://www.sfatulmedicului.ro/Reproducereaumana-asistata/transferul-embrionar-a- fertilizarea-in-vitro_1080, last consulted on 31.01.2013.

(43) Patrick Baudry, Op. cit.

(44) Alain Corbin, Jean-Jacques Courtine, Georges Vigarello (coord.), Op.cit.

(45) Glennys Howarth, Op. cit.

(46) Alain Corbin (et all), Op. ct.

(47) Some signs of this overcoming: tattoos, practice of extreme sports, aesthetic surgery.

(48) See organ donation. Becoming useless, the body is nothing, existing only through the social function that it manages to accomplish. Cf.: Glennys Howarth, Op.cit.

(49) We attempt to describe the deep reasoning of a cultural paradigm and the presented aspects are not to be understood as an apocalypse of the general things, of the exclusiveness. The idea is to capture a functioning principle that, of course, in the complex ensemble of the human culture, from non-theoretical perspectives, may be seen as a tendency.

(50) Darian Leader, David Corfield, Why do people get ill?, Hamish Hamilton, 2007.