204 C. Kroløkke and M.N. Petersen
her mother’s uterus into her own body as not only ensuring a chance
at pregnancy and children, but in her story the uterus becomes key to
her woman-ness. She says, if I had had breast cancer and wanted a new
breast, no one would have objected (Anna 2014 ). Anna’s desire and
hope is, thus, doubly: To have an ‘own’ child and through pregnancy to
reinstate her woman-ness. To Franklin ( 1997 ) and Rose ( 2007 ), repro-
ductive technologies are gendered ‘hope technologies’ as well as always
future-oriented in their focus. Hope interlinks, Novas ( 2006 ) argues,
with diverse actors. The hopes of patients and their relatives are inter-
linked with the hopes of scientists for medical breakthroughs and career
advancements and the hopes of hospitals for high international standing
and recognition. In the UT cases, hope is intricately interwoven with
conventional ideas on motherhood as a natural destiny, predicated upon
the notion of the uterus as a supplement, or an artefact, extractable and
exchangeable between women.
Bio-intimacy and Supplementarity: Surrogacy
and UT as New Citizenship Projects
In this section, we discuss what altruism and keeping it in the family
does to our understandings of surrogacy and UT. Altruism is a common
trope that combats ethical questionable forms of surrogacy and UT. In
the case of surrogacy, altruism is understood by a majority of the ethi-
cal board members as an ethical solution. For example, SMER writes,
‘Surrogacy should only be legal when the woman has a close relation
to the potential parents (daughter, son, sister, brother or close friend)’
(Asplund et al. 2013 ). Likewise, in reference to altruistic surrogacy the
DER notes, ‘Typically, it will be a woman from the couple’s family or
circle of friends’ (Danish Ethical Council 2008 ). Altruism and gift-
giving turn the surrogate mother and the act of surrogacy into socially
and ethically acceptable acts. In the case of UT, altruism is not only a
prerequisite but an underlying assumption as well as distanced from
any concerns related to social pressures. In this bio-intimate economy,
the act of altruism secures that the uterine provider is properly and
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