Unruly bodies: Infertility as a disability
Abstract
The persistence of the social and cultural value of motherhood in the U.S. along with the advancement of assistive reproductive technologies creates a double-bind for women who struggle with infertility (Russo 1976; Zucker 1999; Greil 2002; McQuillan et al. 2003; Loftus 2004; Sternke 2005). This circumstance leads women with infertility to feel stigmatized in a variety of ways. Their adult life course is not progressing as expected and, therefore, they are not fulfilling personal and social gender expectations. Technology has advanced rapidly since the first documented artificial inseminations in the early 1900s to a battery of treatments, including in vitro fertilization through egg and/or sperm donations, which are available today. These advancements have increased the pressure on women to bear biological children rather than seek other outlets for childbearing and caretaking. This causes many women with infertility to feel pressured to pursue the complete range of available treatments despite their financial and career, physical and psychological costs. For these reasons, a number of women with fertility problems have sued insurance companies and employers to gain coverage for fertility treatments and additional paid time away from work to pursue them. In several legal cases The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was used to claim infertility is a disability and those who suffer from this disability should be granted access to financial resources for treatment. In this study I investigate the connection between women’s experiences of infertility and the personal and social implications of legally constructing infertility as a disability under the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 using a triangulated methods and data. In looking at infertility—a health condition that can trigger multiple responses legally, psychologically, and socially—this study adds new insights into a range of central sociological foci, including stigma, self-labeling, and embodied identity, as well as further developing our understanding of the social construction of disability.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Spencer, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Womens studies|Sociology
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