ART During Zika Epidemic in Brazil: Preconception Testing, Risk Factors and Intersectional Inequalities

• In Event: Innovating Reproduction and (Re)Generating Parenthood Possibilities: Critical Studies of New Technologies

Abstract

My proposed research will contribute to the understanding of challenges arising in human
reproduction, reproductive politics and gender issues by focusing on how a global threat has shaped
women’s reproductive practices in diverse ways. This is also a great opportunity to investigate an
issue that received little attention during the Zika outbreak (seen as the primary concern was
mother-to-child transmission and birth defects). Interestingly, some women aged more than 35
(most of them from a middle-class or upper-class background, with access to private health care)
have chosen to take the risk of a pregnancy instead of delaying plans, and this despite the risk of
birth defects during Zika epidemic. Among these social groups, couples who attend a fertility clinic

and access Assisted Reproductive Technologies (egg, embryo or semen freezing, egg or sperm
donation, in vitro fertilisation) face a new concern: given how little is known about the disease how
can the risk of Zika infection in gamete really be diagnosed? How to plan to start a family in an
increased context of emergent diseases (with potential vertical and/or sexual transmission)? The
question is then raised for private and public fertility clinics of how to lead with this new medical
concern, often when technologies of testing are not yet available. Which strategies have arisen to
manage both congenital risk factors and intention to procreate? How do the different actors (future
parents, ‘third-party’ providers, health professionals, health policy makers) bypass or subvert the
reproductive technologies available? These changes in reproductive practices bring once again to
the forefront questions about the unequal social access to health care, reproductive technologies
and the current state of sexual and reproductive rights – of which Brazil is a striking example.

Author

• Helena Prado, CEPED/IFRIS