Surveillance in Medically Assisted Reproductive Care in France

Beyond the laws, different institutions watch over - or veille sur - the access to and practice of medically assisted reproductive care in France. Although a shift in the moral regimes underlying French reproductive governance can be observed, ART practices are monitored through surveillance mechanisms, the economic and medical nature of which conceals their normalizing function. Woman and couples who do not correspond to these norms are prevented from forming a family through the French ART system. In this article we show how, faced with this reproductive exclusion, French women and couples choose to undertake cross-border reproductive care in an attempt to circumvent surveillance and fulfil their reproductive desire.