Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2007, 8 (2): 68-74

Egg, Sperm, test-tube... and gender. Attitudes of Czech Men and Women towards Artificial Reproductive Technologies and Adoption

Lenka Slepičková

Reproductive medicine is one of the most progressive and most popular medicine branches. Its success and rapid development, together with the primacy of biological or genetic ties in the western construction of family is considered the main reason for decreasing popularity of adoption as the way of resolving involuntary childlessness. These assumptions are confronted with empirical findings about Czech population. The respondents of the survey conducted in the Czech households were asked about their preferences in the hypothetical situation of being confronted with physical infertility and about their attitudes towards various ways of solving it. The data showed that while infertility is actually constructed as a medical problem requiring high technology medical treatments, the adoption would not be considered a choice of last resort, after the failure of all procedures of artificial reproduction, including using donor gametes or embryo. Further, the data does not support the hypothesis of significant gender differences in these attitudes.

Keywords: ART (Artificial reproductive technologies), Adoption, Gender differences

Published: June 1, 2007  Show citation

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Slepičková, Lenka. 2007. "Egg, Sperm, test-tube... and gender. Attitudes of Czech Men and Women towards Artificial Reproductive Technologies and Adoption." Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research 8(2):68-74.
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