L’insupportable et l’incertain: proximité et dés- attachement dans l’assistance médicale à la procréation avec tiers donneur. Anthropologie & Santé

Resumo: This paper addresses the emerging tensions among couples with infertility problems who use assisted reproductive technologies with a third-party donor in France and Portugal. It is based on empirical data collected through interviews and relies on the sociological model of a plurality of regimes of engagement. Furthermore, it posits the concepts of unbearable and uncertain to analyze the relationship towards the third-party donor, which can be viewed as problematic, as well as the uncertainties of these couples as to the success of the project of having a child using biomedical technologies, after successive tests and failures. Moreover, it observes an operation of detachment from the third-party donor, through dynamics of differentiation between the living (the gametes) and the human (a child). We see operations of revision, or complete exit from the project, caused by capacity exhaustion or by the difficulty to define through that project the completeness of the person or the couple.