the Female Body GOVERNING

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karen throsby
40 will be entitled to a single funded cycle, with no timetable given for
the full implementation of the NICE recommendations. 5 This move
confi rms the status of IVF in the United Kingdom as a necessary and
effective medical treatment, further normalizing both the technology
and the engagement with it.
Fundamentally, from the patients’ perspective, the imperative to
undergo IVF stems from the need, which participants frequently cited,
to have “done everything possible” to get pregnant before becoming
reconciled to the prospect of a life without children. Indeed, for the
participants in this study, the engagement with IVF was experienced
as a precondition to being able to even begin to accept childlessness.
IVF, then, even when it fails, functions as a means of distinguishing
the self from those who would be candidates for treatment but who
have chosen not to undergo it, as well as from those who have chosen
to live without children—a life choice widely assumed a priori to be
indicative of selfi shness. 6 This, in turn, produces a novel, legitimized
form of childlessness:
Claire: . . . I can say, “At least I tried.” So there can be no stage in the
future when I might say to myself, “Oh well, if only I’d tried, it could
have been different.” Erm . . . it’s almost like I can say to society,
“Look, I tried to be the typical female, I tried to be the mother, you
know, but it conspired against me, so I now have the right to go off
and spend my money on nice holidays or whatever and don’t need
to feel guilty.”
Having undergone IVF serves not only to preempt Claire’s own
potential future regrets, but also performs a silencing function toward
others—“society”—who might choose to evaluate her negatively because
of her life without children. IVF takes on a public, confessional dimension
(Foucault, 1978, p. 62) through which the intention and desire to
parent is made clear, in spite of the absence of a child. As Tim noted
in an interview with him and his wife, Katy, “our consciences are clear.”
Indeed, for Claire, only by trying IVF is the “right to go off and spend
my money on nice holidays . . .” earned—an understanding that refl ects
the powerful association of certain kinds of consumption with the
presumed “selfi shness” of childlessness. Several other women repeated
this sentiment, expressing concern that overseas holidays, a new car,
or new soft furnishings might be misread by others as indicative of
being too “selfi sh” to be a parent, causing them either to conceal their
consumption, or to spread out purchases to make them less noticeable
to others. This highlights the extent to which IVF, while conventionally