ABSTRACT
Claire’s comment reflects the assumption that most families have a genetic link between parents and their children and indicates her concurrent anxiety about the use of this procedure with her partner Neil. Claire suggests that there is a distinction between heterosexual couples2 who utilise IVF (crucially when the sperm and ova of the intending parents are used) to create their own family, and others who use donor insemination to create families who do not conform to this norm. In construing IVF as a temporary deviation in creating a family of one’s own, Claire’s comment is an acknowledgment of the pervasiveness of ‘the family’ norm in late twentieth-century British society, where bio-genetic3 relatedness provides the basis for familial relations. Bio-genetic relatedness may be actual – that is, genetic – or assumed, on the basis of the relationship between the parents,4 whether socially or for the purpose of establishing legal parenthood. However, Claire suggests that, when using donor insemination, heterosexual couples cannot simply ‘carry off into the sunset’. Rather, this procedure disrupts the bio-genetic link between social fathers and their children. Hence, bio-genetic ties are no longer taken for granted, but must be managed or negotiated.
