Reproductive norms: Ethical and practical dilemmas around technical interventions in reproduction – NorPro

Scientific and technical interventions on human life are raising intense debates throughout the world, all the more so when they touch at what we perceive of as the foundation of our humanity, namely procreation. Generally thought of as "natural", procreation from this perspective should not be submitted to any exterior interference. The crux of these debates inform us about what we consider to be "good" conditions for bringing a child into the world - both in terms of the family configuration in which it is born and the quality of its future life, as well as the limits we wish to place, if any, on intervening in human life and existence.
The NorPro project seeks to document and interrogate the way in which all the actors involved in the practice of reproductive technologies negotiate the terms of what is reproductive acceptability. Relying on an ethnographic approach, the research team composed of anthropologists and political scientists specialized in the field of health and reproduction, will focus on the concrete dimensions of the ethical and practical dilemmas surrounding gamete donation, pre-implantation and prenatal diagnosis, genome editing, perinatal medicine and surrogacy. Our investigations will combine ethnographic observations, interviews, and analyses of the current legal framework as well as political and social debates underway at the national and international levels. We will examine the uses of techniques at play in the different procreative stages - from pre-conception to birth – with the objective being to analyze, in situ, the limits of what constitutes "acceptable" procreation, a life "worth living" and, finally, what defines the frontiers of the very notion of humanity. Through its comparison of these different situations, this unprecedented study will largely contribute to social science knowledge and shed new light on discussions whose practical dimension is often underestimated.