Article | Open Access
Who Deserves to Reproduce? Latvian State Support for Infertility and Moral Considerations
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Abstract: This article examines how access to state‐funded infertility treatment in Latvia is regulated and morally framed. The analysis draws on state regulatory documents concerning sexual and reproductive health in Latvia, as well as six semi‐structured interviews with Latvian politicians and reproductive health specialists. The findings reveal that eligibility for treatment is not based solely on biomedical criteria but is also shaped by normative assumptions about gender roles and moral worth. A dominant heteronormative framework positions women as central to reproduction, while men are often marginalised or excluded from state support. Furthermore, infertility treatment is described as a form of economic investment by the state, with an implicit expectation of demographic return. Importantly, reproductive health specialists and politicians do not present reproduction as a neutral or purely biological process, but rather frame it in moral terms, suggesting that there are specific, morally acceptable forms of reproduction.
Keywords: gender; heteronormativity; infertility; Latvia; morality; policy
Published:
Issue:
Vol 13 (2025): Contemporary Changes in Medically Assisted Reproduction: The Role of Social Inequality and Social Norms (In Progress)
© Diāna Kiščenko. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.