Fertile debates, circumventive pursuits: Reproductive governance and gamete donation in Turkey

This article examines the transformations of reproductive politics in Turkey under the AKP governments since 2002, shaped by the intersection of neoconservatism, nationalism, familialism, and pronatalism. Focusing on public and media discourses surrounding assisted reproduction, it analyzes the controversy sparked by single celebrities' use of foreign sperm banks and the subsequent 2010 ban on transnational gamete donation. By linking the concept of reproductive governance with debates over a perceived crisis of masculinity, the article argues that this ban marks an early manifestation of a broader national masculinist restoration. It illustrates how gender, reproduction, and kinship have been reconfigured within increasingly religious, ethnonationalist and patriarchal frameworks. Through an analysis of media narratives, the article demonstrates how certain reproductive practices, particularly single women's pursuit of motherhood, are hypervisibilized and stigmatized, while other forms of assisted reproduction are obscured. These discursive strategies serve not only to discipline reproductive behaviors, but also to reinforce gendered hierarchies and normative family structures under the guise of moral, social, and national imperatives. Ultimately, the article reveals how reproductive politics in Turkey, and in similar contexts globally, are increasingly governed by authoritarian strategies of moralization, control, and criminalization. These strategies are mobilized in response to perceived threats to the national, moral, and social order, whether posed by shifting gender and familial norms, demographic anxieties, or assertions of reproductive autonomy.