"Baby on demand": when the science and the desire of a child come together to go beyond the limits

A pregnancy that has not arrived and a diagnosis, at age 33, that provides an answer but causes a emotional earthquake: Early menopause The next three years pbaded through a tunnel of fears, frustrations, duels: a marshy road in which, however, the desire to become a mother again it became deeper and deeper. I had already decided to turn to science to attempt a pregnancy through the egg donation when Joaquín, "for these mysteries of life", arrived naturally.

The experience was such that Luciana Mantero, journalist and writer, decided to place the body and tell it in the book. The greatest desire in the world. At the end of 2016, about a year after the publication, he wrote in Infobae an article: "You do not know what will happen with a book, nor to what extent to accompany it".

A new documentary called Baby on demand, that Friday at 22 will be the first National Geographic, seems to be an answer to this open end.

"Since I published the book, hundreds of messages have come from all over Latin America – they were women who had read my story and told me theirs," he said. said Mantero. Infobae. Many were stories of "traditional families" a hetero-parent, like his own, who had had difficulties in conceiving; others were stories of the so-called "new family models".

"In both cases, it is a process lived with a lot loneliness. This implies not only that we treat, accept what is happening and decide to take the path of science, but also to understand what is happening in society. social context with these decisions. For example, the the fear that in the future this son (for example of two fathers) is rejected by society or school ".

For the realization of Baby on demand Mantero and a National Geographic team They traveled through Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. In the documentary, which begins Friday at 10 pm, the story of a couple of Colombian men who uses the surrogacy in California to make the pregnancy of his daughter (are the calls "homoparental families").

Also that of Marley and his son Mirko and that of an Argentinian, also "single father by choice", which made the process of subrogation in Argentina despite the legal void (are the appeals "single-parent families"). A pregnant trans man also leads the fight of a "transgender family" to have a child.

The young man has a relationship with a biological woman and therefore had to resort to gamete donation (sperm) Also, the woman is younger, so they decided that it was him, for his biological capacity of gestar, the one responsible for carrying out the pregnancy. This is the story of a man who will give birth but who nevertheless has a gender role: paternity.

There are also "heteroparental families (the pair" mom and dad ") who use the technique of in vitro fertilization to overcome difficulties. The story of a vulcanologist, for example, highlights the the tension between the biological and the social: a woman who has dedicated her life to her professional career and, when she wanted to have a child, she discovered that it was "old"

Finally, there are interviews for "single mothers by choice" which counts the stigmatization with which they have to charge, and Lesbian couples using the ROPA method realize the desire for motherhood. Instead of a contribution of the eggs and the baby and the other just to accompany the process, the method has "three legs": this allows that one brings the genetic material, a donor brings the sperm and the other gesture.

The idea was that there would not be a single look but voice for and againstThis is why they included the position of the most conservative sectors (bioethics professionals, religious groups, a priest). The philosopher Diana Cohen Agrest brought a philosophical look: Are there ethical limits for technological advances?

"We were all learning about these new ways of being a family. we shared the anxiety, the pain, the desireand that this deep desire for maternity or paternity has exceeded the limits of the traditional family, "continues Mantero.

"The trans man (pregnant) told me clearly:" This deep search for the desire to have a child we sister& # 39; Listen to them, see that our stories are alike, maybe I could collaborate so that prejudices do not win us and to be a company of more tolerant. I think that understanding what the other lives is the first antidote to fear"

This trans man desire in the first place. She says it in the documentary: when she still had the identity of a girl, she asked God two things: to be a man and, one day, to have a child.

"You realize all the barriers They must go through these families and what is the strength of their desire to have a child. Beyond the technology at the resort, I learned a lot about how they deal with these decisions, all the interior work who has the person who decides to arrive at maternity or paternity in an unconventional way ".

The documentary badyzes what they call "The revolution of fertility" and not because they are entirely new techniques, but because of their implications: "At first we only talked about artificial insemination and we are talking about genetic editing today," says the journalist. This is the technique of replacing or repairing specific sections of DNA with deficiencies (which is why many talk aboutdesigner babies ").

"Assisted reproduction also has those borders. The techniques are advancing very fast, so I think this documentary is a help to start metabolize everything that happens to us ".

The taboos, barriers and intolerance Faced with these new family models, the documentary is also visible: they see the difficulties faced by gay couples so that the birth certificates of their children do not say "mother" or "father". We see in the the fear of the pregnant woman to show her face for the interview. We see in the shame that many feel when they are not genetically parents.

"The idea was fascinating for me, the challenge was to see how to tell this new social composition and how to incorporate the most conservative opinion of references from more traditional families, "concludes Fernando Semenzato, National Geographic & Nat Geo Kids Production Manager in Latin America.

"I think the documentary courage to those who, for fear perhaps, do not dare to embark on a family project different from the clbadical project. And I think that puts something on the table is happening. I think we have to see what's going on, understand it and go through it, to accept it or not is a subject of everyone ".