Gender Socialization and the Public Provision of Fertility Treatment

Dr Giulia Cavaliere and Francesca Cesarano will present their paper "Gender Socialization and the Public Provision of Fertility Treatment." In this paper, they defend the legitimacy of allocating public resources to the provision of fertility treatment from two objections that take into consideration the phenomenon of gender socialization.

First, they consider the objection according to which the choice to undergo fertility treatment to have genetically related children is not an entirely autonomous decision, but rather the product of oppressive gender socialization. Second, they examine the objection concerning norm legitimation and indirect harm, according to which fertility treatment (and its provision) embodies oppressive gender norms that indirectly harm infertile and other women.

In response to the first objection, they argue that only subscribing to an overly demanding account of autonomy can yield the conclusion that women’s choice to undergo fertility treatment is non-genuinely autonomous. Such an account additionally risks undermining women’s agency and licenses women’s procreative choices to excessive and unjustified scrutiny. In response to the second objection, they contend that curtailing women’s capacity to access fertility functions as a form of double jeopardy, and defend the view that the costs of compliance and non-compliance to oppressive social norms necessitate a differentiated approach. In closing, they consider three objections to their arguments.

Kindly note that tea, coffee and cookies will be provided.