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‘Everybody’s got a dad...’. Issues for lesbian families in the management of donor insemination
Author(s) -
Haimes Erica,
Weiner Kate
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.00215
Subject(s) - donor insemination , lesbian , negotiation , insemination , gynecology , infertility , sperm bank , artificial insemination , family medicine , medicine , psychology , gender studies , sociology , political science , pregnancy , law , biology , andrology , sperm , genetics
This article explores the experiences of lesbians who have become mothers using donated semen. During the 1980s lesbian access to clinic‐based donor insemination was limited because it was seen to threaten both the traditional family and the medical definition of ‘infertility’. However, the spread of self‐insemination networks has enabled more lesbians to become mothers. This article analyses how lesbians negotiate and manage the role that donated semen, and donors, play in their, and their children’s, lives. In the discussion, it is suggested that lesbian donor insemination has now gained some acceptance, but only within a medicalised framework. Self‐insemination is still seen as a threat to medicine since it is a de‐professionalised, de‐medicalised practice that privileges the lay knowledge and concerns of the women themselves.