On Having an Own Child: Reproductive Technologies and the Cultural Construction of Childhood

Karin Lesnik-Oberstein explores the debates and decisions around the uses of reproductive technologies, specifically in relation to childhood and the having of children.

Even books ostensibly devoted to the topic of why people want children and the reasons for using reproductive technologies tend to start with the assumption that this is either simply a biological drive to reproduce, or a socially instilled desire. This book uses psychoanalysis not to provide an answer in its own right, but as an analytic tool to probe more deeply the problems of these assumptions. In doing so, Lesnik-Oberstein addresses wider issues to do with thinking around, and articulating ideas about, nature, culture, history, society, the family, the individual, and the child. Instead of largely taking for granted the idea that of course people want to have children, and of course they want them to be their "own”, and, of course, they want these children because everyone knows what children are, this book will not take these ideas for granted, but argue instead that the child and the desire for the child constitute in particular and specific ways “a value, a theme of expression, an occasion of emotion”. Given that it is the idea of an “own” child that underpins and justifies the whole use of reproductive technologies, this book is a crucial and wholly original intervention in this complex and highly topical area.