[Consenting to uncertainties: informed consent and (de)regulation of assisted reproductive technologies]

This article aims to analyze the characteristics in the creation and utilization of self-knowledge by physicians and "laypersons" involved in assisted reproductive technologies, based on a comparison of their respective discursive practices concerning expectations, uncertainties, and responsibilities associated with these techniques in Portugal. Physicians evaluate the (un)certainties in the application of these techniques based on naturalist and essentialist categories. However, such arguments are then used as an ideological instrument to disguise the lack of a "scientific" explanation for the failures, thereby reproducing the belief in the "miraculous" nature of scientific and technological progress. The lay understanding of the benefits and limitations of these techniques reflects a reverential attitude towards medicine and the rationalist paradigm of the biomedical perspective, although it is possible to glimpse some spaces for autonomy and resistance vis-à-vis the medical proposals. The uncertainties of these techniques are conceptualized as exceptional and intrinsic effects of medical practice, to which one is required to submit individually. Women are particularly identified as the main parties responsible for maximizing the probability of "success" with these techniques.