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    Rights, bioconstitutionalism and the politics of reproductive citizenship in Italy

    Hanafin, Patrick (2013) Rights, bioconstitutionalism and the politics of reproductive citizenship in Italy. Citizenship Studies 17 (8), pp. 914-927. ISSN 1362-1025.

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    Abstract

    The introduction of a restrictive law on assisted reproduction in Italy in 2004 sees the privileging of a conservative model of family relations and a patriarchal conception of society. This law excludes many individuals from full reproductive citizenship. The 2004 Act excludes gay couples, single people and people who are carriers of genetically inherited conditions from access to assisted reproductive technologies. This article examines the manner in which citizen contestation of the law via court challenges engages what Jasanoff (2011, Reframing rights: bioconstitutionalism in the genetic age, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press) has termed a practice of ‘bioconstitutionalism’. Such a practice has led to a gradual judicial reworking of the Act, and demonstrates the power of individuals acting in concert to contest successfully draconian state action. It undoes the imposition of a biopolitical ordering on individuals and allows them, through their own continuous action, to perform a contestatory form of citizenship.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): reproductive citizenship, human rights, Italy, bioconstitutionalism, biopolitics
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Law School
    Research Centres and Institutes: Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS), Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for (BISR), Contemporary Literature, Centre for
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 07 Jan 2014 09:13
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:08
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/8571

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