Access to origins: from the recognition of a fundamental right to the emergence of new relational categories

Ihe question of access to knowledge of personal origins entered social and political debates a few decades ago in many countries of Europe and North America, concerning adoptive family situations, which became transnational at the end of the XX th century, then families resulting from assisted procreation involving a third party donor. Carried by the claims of movements militant for the rights of people born in secret or abandoned, then by the demands expressed by people conceived by gamete donation, it called upon knowledge in psychology, the opinions of lawyers and the lighting of social sciences while leading to lively societal exchanges and several parliamentary debates. The legislative changes that have occurred in recent decades bear witness to the growing importance recognized in origins in conceptions of identity, but they also lead to new questions about the limits of kinship.

2Based on the case of France, we propose, in this article, to return to the way in which the question of origins was first manifested by issues relating to fundamental rights, linking protection of children and construction of personal identities. , then to consider its effects on the transformations of kinship and its borders, seen from the angle of anthropology. What forms of links can it give rise to, and to what extent do these transform the relational environment of the people concerned?

(Dis)placed children, adoption and origins

The 2002 law and the CNAOP

3In France, as in the United States a little earlier, claims for access to personal origins emerged in the field of abandoned childhood and adoption during the last decades of the 20th century . They echo old situations: the history of Public Assistance traces the secrets and silences imposed on foster children

and their families as to their origins? [1]

[1]

Ivan JABLONKA, Neither father nor mother. History of the children of…, practices that took on a new meaning and became institutionalized when the adoption of minors appeared, authorized from 1923 and reinforced in 1939 by adoptive legitimation, intended for children of unknown parents. From 1966, full adoption established a substitutive filiation which broke the relations linked to the birth of the child. These could already be concealed by the device of childbirth in secret. Between the revolutionary decree-law which established it for the first time in 1793 and the law of 1941, which extended the principle to all hospitals, this system increasingly associated secrecy and abandonment [2? ]

[2]

Nadine LEFAUCHEUR, "Childbirth under X and shadow mothers",…. Administrative and family practices also maintain the confidentiality of adoption records or the secrecy of the identity of “birth parents”, or even the secrecy of the adoption itself. Analyzed by anthropology in the light of the question of origins, full adoption, which is dominant in Western societies, thus appears to reveal the principle of exclusivity of filiation and, paradoxically, the valorization of biogenetic relationships which serve as a model for its establishment in contemporary societies? [3]

[3]

Judith MODELL, Kinship with Strangers: Adoption and….

4From the 1980s to the 1990s, in France, concealment of the origins of abandoned and/or adopted children was increasingly contested. Within a more general framework of redefining administrative policies, the law established, in 1978, freedom of access for individuals to administrative documents concerning them… except in cases of secrecy protected by law. Collectives of former wards and born under X, grouped into associations and supported by a few lawyers, psychologists and psychoanalysts, denounce the symbolic violence represented by the impossibility of accessing knowledge of the conditions of their birth [4? ]

[4]

Pierre VERDIER, Geneviève DELAISI, Nobody's Child, Odile.... Access to knowledge of personal origins is defended on the basis of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and "understood as the right for an individual to know the identity of the persons who have contributed to his conception or at birth and potentially come into contact with them". These principles are also affirmed by the 1989 United Nations Convention on the right of the child to identity, which includes his nationality, his name and his family relations as recognized by law, as well as, "in the possible, the right to know one's parents and to be brought up by them"? [5]

[5]

Articles 7 and 8, Convention on the Rights of the Child….

5The recognition of the right of individuals to know their personal origins, however, comes up against many obstacles. In France, lively debates oppose the right of women to dispose of their bodies and freely decide on their maternity to the right of children to know their personal origins? [6].

[6]

Cécile EMSELLEM, Born without a mother. Childbirth under X and…. During the 1990s, while several reports suggested the abolition or adjustment of the delivery system "under X", law n° 93-22 of January 8, 1993 consolidated it on the contrary by organizing the impossibility for " born under X” to take legal action to have their maternal filiation established, which brings secret childbirth into the Civil Code? [7]

[7]

Art. 341 and 341-1 of the Civil Code. See Nadine LEFAUCHEUR, 2006,….

6This divide is complicated by the testimonies of associations of "shadow mothers", whose demands raise the question of the treatment of women asking for secrecy when they are admitted to maternity services [8]? .

[8]

Nadine LEFAUCHEUR, 2001, op.cit.. Law n° 2002-93 of January 22, 2002 finally transforms the conditions of childbirth in secret and those of the search for origins by the creation of the National Council for Access to Personal Origins (Cnaop), which tries to reconcile maintaining a woman's right to give birth in secret with better consideration of access to personal origins? [9]

[9]

Marie-Christine LE BOURSICOT, “Accessing one’s origins…. The Cnaop covers two devices. The first puts in place at the time of birth a standardized protocol for welcoming women asking for the secrecy of their identity: each must now be warned of "the importance for everyone to know their origins and their history" and invited "to leave, if she agrees, information about his health and that of the father, the origins of the child and the circumstances of the birth as well as, in a sealed envelope, his identity” [10? ]

[10]

Article L 222-6 of the Code of Social Action and Families.. She is informed of the choices covered by secret childbirth: giving birth without leaving any identifying information (she is then advised of the possibility of lifting the secrecy of her identity later and at any time); leave their identity in a sealed envelope in order to be contacted if the child wishes to identify them one day; leave his identity directly accessible in the file. Women can also recognize the child and establish maternal filiation, then abandon it. Through these different possibilities, the systematically anonymous character of secret childbirth disappears. The second system organizes the reception of requests for access to origins and the search for “birth mothers”; when these are identified, we seek their agreement for a possible lifting of secrecy. The Cnaop also registers requests for lifting of secrecy from birth parents or their families. This regulation is echoed by an institutional discourse now recognizing the importance of the relationship to origins, a discourse whose traces can be found in the professional and administrative practices of the health and child protection sectors. A study? [11]

[11]

Agnès MARTIAL, “The archives of origins. Traces and (say)…files of children born in secret, abandoned and cared for by Childhood Social Assistance between 1995 and 2015 thus describes the appearance, in professional practices, of new modes of conservation, production and circulation traces of the children's pre-adoptive history. From maternities to nurseries, passing through foster families where newborn babies are placed, care or social assistance professionals produce birth notebooks or albums, clothing and personal items, keep them and, sometimes, archive. Shaped by the institution, these traces of origins are the subject of various protocols and advice to families from adoption professionals, in the apparent sense of an ever more fluid integration of the child's pre-adoptive history into the present of his family life. The challenge seems above all to offer him the support of a story of which the absence of parents at the time of his birth deprived him. But this logic has its limits. Other traces, also preserved in the files, sometimes reflect the existence of a family of origin wishing to recreate or maintain a link with the child. These potential relationships are treated with caution, via strict rules for the circulation of information and support for the consultation of files: they are in fact perceived as threatening for the construction of the child's adoptive relationship. The artefacts embodying the different relationships present in the history of adopted children are thus composed and treated according to two competing principles: the logic of narrative continuity which governs their constitution and their conservation responds to the imperative of protecting adoptive ties, which limits or prevents their circulation. This double injunction does not facilitate the search for people born and adopted in France.

The question of origins in international adoption

7The very significant growth in international adoption from the 1980s to the 2010s has also redefined the scope and the challenges of the question of origins. Formulated according to Euro-American legal conventions, it genealogically links the child to his adoptive parents following the complete breakdown of relations linked to his birth? [12]

[12]

Sign HOWELL, The Kinning of Foreigners. Transnational adoption…. However, as early as 1993, the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption? [13]

[13]

Art. 30, Hague Convention, 1993: “Authorities…affirms in principle the protection of adopted children's access to their origins, the child's right to identity being inseparable from the transmission of information relating to his birth parents, his cultural, religious and ethnic origins and their national origin. Origins thus constitute an issue in the policies of donor states vis-à-vis “resource children” who have become a new lever of sovereignty, with adoptive flows evolving according to domestic political crises and international conflicts [14]? .

[14]

Yves DENECHERE, Children from afar. History of…, but also by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity affirmed by the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and by the Hague Convention, according to which the child must preferably be kept in his country of birth, adoption does not to be international only as a last resort? [15]

[15]

Jean-François MIGNOT, “International adoption in the…. While making increasing demands on the profile of candidates for adoption, the countries of origin are showing their desire to maintain a link with the children sent abroad, in the form of reports, the regular sending of which determines the possibility of other future adoptions, or by the access of the child to the citizenship of his country of birth? [16]

[16]

Françoise Romaine OUELLETTE, Julie SAINTPIERRE, “Relationship,…. This growing importance of the place given to the origins of the child is coupled with a process of "moralization" leading to the suspension and the rarefaction of procedures, when these contravene the ethical and legal guarantees protecting the conditions movement of children? [17]

[17]

Sébastien ROUX, Blood of ink. Investigation into the end of the adoption…. The question of origins is thus at the heart of the recent evolution of the number of international adoptions, characterized since 2005 by a massive drop, as rapid as it is unexpected, which makes the progressive extinction of this institution more and more likely? [ 18]

[18]

Jean-François MIGNOT, 2015, art. cit., p. 2; Sebastien ROUX,….

8In adoptive families, the place given to origins in international adoption has also transformed the experience of parents as well as that of their children. Maintaining the child's ties to his country of birth has become a constitutive dimension of "good" adoptive parenting through the collection and preservation of information for the child's attention, the familiarization of the latter to his "culture" of origin and the organization of trips back to the country of birth? [19]

[19]

Sign HOWELL, 2006, art. cit.. But the origins are also evident in the thwarted sense of belonging expressed by many international adoptees, confronted with the expression of racism and/or assimilated to children of immigrant origin in their adopted countries. Supposed to build families open to differences, rich in their ethnic and cultural diversity, international adoption has paradoxically come to reveal the difficulties of our societies in making room for children from elsewhere [20? ]

[20]

Barbara YNGVESSON, Belonging in an Adopted World. Breed,…. The voice of these adoptees, who have become adults, is deployed within associations and collectives? [21]

[21]

For example in France: Korean Roots, the Voice of Adoptees,…who denounce the irregular conditions of many adoptions that have occurred in recent decades and support the possibility for adopted persons to recreate, if they wish, a link with their country of birth, and to access knowledge of their origins. Some of these people seek and sometimes find a “biological family”, which then comes to coexist with their adoptive family.

The question of origins in medically assisted procreation with donation (AMPD)

9In the field of assisted procreation, the question of the relationship to origins arises in situations involving recourse to a third party donor. The first forms of regulation of these situations were organized within the medical world, according to two principles: the anonymity of gamete donations and the secrecy of recourse to donation. Their institutionalization by the bioethics law voted in 1994, reinforced a regulation thought from the case of sperm donations: it was then a question of securing paternal filiation and protecting the donor from possible claims. For several decades, the "neither seen nor known" model thus dominated engendering donations with a third party donor? [22].

[22]

Irène THERY, Humans like the others. Bioethics, anonymity…. But in the course of the 2000s, a generation of young adults resulting from these donations, gathered in the association PMAnonyme, claimed a right of access to the identity of the donors. As in the case of children born in secrecy, these few situations? [23]

[23]

Children born in ART represented about 3.4% of the total... nevertheless arouse lively and passionate debates: to the claims of right to the origins of people conceived by donation is opposed the threat that the lifting of anonymity would represent for the recipient couples, as well as the risk of seeing a reduction in the number of donors, discouraged by possible identification. The experiences of other countries, which lifted anonymity well before France, contradict these fears. Furthermore, the development of techniques (with the appearance of more invasive and restrictive oocyte donation), the appearance of recourse to donation in homoparental families and the emergence of surrogacy practices, which are part of in a completely different model than that of secrecy and imitation of procreation, transform the meaning of the gift and lead, in families, to stories that no longer hide the existence of a third party who contributed to the birth of the child. Finally, the claims of people conceived by donation are accompanied by the increasing use of DNA tests, which are banned in France, leading to initial identifications which render the principle of anonymity obsolete. In 2021, the fourth revision of the bioethics law provides access for female couples and single women to medically assisted procreation with donation and decides on the lifting of the anonymity of donations. It thus validates a new interpretation of the use of donation, no longer based on "pathological" infertility but on a parental project where the intention becomes central, legitimizing the use of donation and the establishment of filiation. the claims of people conceived by donation are accompanied by the increasing use of DNA tests, which are banned in France, leading to initial identifications which render the principle of anonymity obsolete. In 2021, the fourth revision of the bioethics law provides access for female couples and single women to medically assisted procreation with donation and decides on the lifting of the anonymity of donations. It thus validates a new interpretation of the use of donation, no longer based on "pathological" infertility but on a parental project where the intention becomes central, legitimizing the use of donation and the establishment of filiation. the claims of people conceived by donation are accompanied by the increasing use of DNA tests, which are banned in France, leading to initial identifications which render the principle of anonymity obsolete. In 2021, the fourth revision of the bioethics law provides access for female couples and single women to medically assisted procreation with donation and decides on the lifting of the anonymity of donations. It thus validates a new interpretation of the use of donation, no longer based on "pathological" infertility but on a parental project where the intention becomes central, legitimizing the use of donation and the establishment of filiation. the fourth revision of the bioethics law establishes access for female couples and single women to medically assisted procreation with donation and decides on the lifting of the anonymity of donations. It thus validates a new interpretation of the use of donation, no longer based on "pathological" infertility but on a parental project where the intention becomes central, legitimizing the use of donation and the establishment of filiation. the fourth revision of the bioethics law establishes access for female couples and single women to medically assisted procreation with donation and decides on the lifting of the anonymity of donations. It thus validates a new interpretation of the use of donation, no longer based on "pathological" infertility but on a parental project where the intention becomes central, legitimizing the use of donation and the establishment of filiation.?[24]

[24]

For a detailed analysis of this evolution, see the thesis….

10In this new context, the law allows persons conceived by donation to access, at their majority and if they so wish, non-identifying data or the identity of procreation third parties. Any new donor will now have to consent to the communication of this data before proceeding with the donation. Persons born before the law may contact the Commission for access to non-identifying data and the identity of third-party donors (Cappad), whose operation is similar to that of the Cnaop created for persons born in secret: it will receive requests people conceived by donation wishing to access information, will try to obtain information and/or find the donor to ask him or her if he or she agrees to lift their anonymity. People who have donated will be able to make themselves known to this commission.

11From adoption to assisted procreation, two major correlated developments are emerging: on the one hand, the growing recognition of a fundamental right to know one's origins and the issue of personal identity attached to it [25? ]

[25]

Laurence BRUNET, “The principle of donor anonymity…. On the other hand, the increasingly clear distinction between origin and filiation, in a context where the growing pluralization of the ways of becoming a parent complicates the relational deal: mother(s), father(s) - carnal, adoption, of intention – coexist with “birth” parents, begetter or begetter, donor or donor, surrogate woman/mother or surrogate composing relational universes that question the possible forms of regulation of multiple begetting [26? ]

[26]

Hugues FULCHIRON, Jehanne SOSSON (dir.), Kinship, filiation,….

Multi-parent configurations? The origins put to the test by quest procedures

12The notion of multi-parenting can then prove to be valuable in describing these configurations, which have in common the fact that there are many people involved in the begetting and/or education of a child? [27].

[27]

Agnès FINE, “Multiple parenthood and the filiation system in…. It makes it possible to explore the multiple dimensions of the relationship between parents. Many studies have highlighted the growing importance today of the voluntary part, the affective, nurturing and “practical” experience of kinship, while analyzing the way in which it nourishes the symbolic and legal dimension [? 28 ]

[28]

Agnès MARTIAL, Be related. Ethnology of family ties…. However, the relations linked to the origin, that is to say to the sole circumstances of the procreation of the child, have been very little considered by social science studies in these multi-parental configurations. They are, however, quite unique. Resulting from a procreative event, they are based on “nature”, a powerful metaphor for kinship in Western societies? [29]

[29]

David SCHNEIDER, American Kinship: A Cultural Account,…. But most of the time they are not based on any affective or daily experience of kinship and are not the object, in the event of identification, of any legal translation. Thus, the right to know one's origins cannot give rise to the redefinition of the filiation and civil status of persons adopted or conceived by donation in ART? [30].

[30]

For people born under secrecy, access to…, devoting a new distinction: “For the first time, it is accepted that biological origin can have a value as such, worthy of protection, without having to be absorbed into the legal category of filiation. »? [31]

[31]

Laurence BRUNET, Michelle GIROUX, “What place for the law… To what relationships, however, can this “biological” origin give rise? Alongside filiation as a legal bond and parenthood – as a way of acting and taking care of the child – the notion of origin invites us to question the existence of relationships that can potentially be added to the parentage of a child. by the fact that one or more person(s) other than his father(s) and mother(s) took part in his procreation? [32]

[32]

Agnès MARTIAL, “Multi-Parenthood and Contemporary Family Forms…. By reviewing some of the many studies conducted over the past twenty years in the field of adoption or more recent work on medically assisted procreation with donation (AMPD), it is possible to outline a few unique to these relationships.

From the body to knowledge about origins: relationships inscribed in stories

13The search for origins is sometimes associated with a quest for “truth” which would testify to the overvaluation of blood, flesh or genes in the construction of identities and the definition of kinship [33? ]

[33]

Dominique MEMMI, The revenge of the flesh. Essay on…. Extending the long history of representations of kinship in Western societies, biogenetic knowledge is indeed, in our societies, a privileged metaphorical support for relations between relatives. The body is thus often presented by people in search of their origins as a place of questioning, an enigma created by secrecy and anonymity: discovering "who we look like" is one of the first motivations for research.? [34]

[34]

Agnès FINE, Agnès MARTIAL, “Towards a naturalization of…. But this reference to the body is not enough to account for all the issues relating to origins, and only makes sense once placed in the personal and family stories retracing the history of people adopted or born from the use of AMPD donation. These stories are characterized by a progressive reversal of the norms relating to the information of the child on the conditions of his adoption or his birth in AMPD. This information is now considered necessary and recommended for adoptive parents, one of whose roles is to preserve, when they can, traces of their child's pre-adoptive history and, in international adoption, to maintain a connection with his country of birth. Parents who have recourse to donation are also invited by the health professionals who accompany them to inform the child of the conditions of its birth. These new recommendations raise new and complex questions – how and when to tell the child, the extended family, who owns the “truth” about the child's history and identity? – because conception with gift must take into account the eminently relational nature of life family? [35]

[35]

Petra NORDQVIST, “The Drive for Openness in Donor Design:…. Thus, the “truth” of bodies and procreation is far from being imposed in the families concerned. Telling or hiding the conditions of his birth to the child also depends on family forms: heteroparental families are for example more likely to maintain secrecy or to delay the announcement to the child than lesboparental families [36]? .

[36]

J. READINGS, L. BLAKE, P. CASEY, V. JADVA, S. GOLOMBOK,…. Finally, this truth does not impose itself abruptly on people adopted or conceived by gift either: the paths of research take shape rather as paths of knowledge giving rise to specific practices of interpretation, choice, in short, the construction of knowledge. related to origins? [37]

[37]

Anaïs MARTIN, 2022, op.cit.. They are also true routes of learning and sharing, during which the people concerned enter into new groups to which they belong.

Quests that take place outside and beyond institutional scenarios

14While lively and long debates have led, in France, to the establishment of institutional mechanisms aimed mainly at identifying two emblematic figures - the woman who gave birth to the child for people born under secrecy, the donor in AMPD – the practices of researching origins are deployed well beyond the procedures imagined by the legislator, and lead to the meeting of a wider circle of characters. The growing use of socio-digital networks allows, for example, adoptees to form communities based on the same geographical and cultural origin (in an international context) or simply on the common experience of adopting and breaking up birth ties.?[38]

[38]

This is what the adoptees met by…. Information flows faster, more easily, and virtual relationships can quickly be established across geographic distance. The recent development of a globalized genetic and genealogical services industry also offers Internet access to so-called direct-to-consumer (DTC) DNA tests as well as to genealogy sites which are tending to become a determining medium for searches for origins, whether it involves trying to identify birth parents for adopted persons or, in the case of assisted procreation, finding a gamete donor and persons from the same donation? [ 39]

[39]

Anaïs MARTIN, "Being from the same gift: sharing…. The search for origins is thus based on digital technologies, weaving unprecedented links in a globalized world.

15In the case of adopted persons as for persons conceived by donation, the conditions of research are transformed, giving rise to rapid, uncontrollable and sometimes invasive interactions? [40].

[40]

Johanne THOMSON-SWEENY, “Looking for your origins on Facebook:…. Whether they are based on institutional mechanisms or on digital social networks, what happens when this research leads to the identification of potential “parents”?

Relationships linked to origins in adoption: a “kinship for oneself”?

16In the field of adoption, terminological uses testify to the power of norms relating to procreation in the definition of links from origins: the quests of adopted persons, when they succeed, lead to meeting a "mother" or a " father", "brothers and sisters" or a "family", "biological or from birth". However, this terminological unit covers a wide variety of situations. The search is sometimes limited to the simple identification of an abstract origin, unless the confrontation is disappointing, or turns into unexpected mourning in the face of the news of the death of the relative sought [41]? .

[41]

Janet CARSTEN, “Connections and Disconnections of Memory and…. But it also happens that new relationships are built. If their appearance can arouse fears and tensions, testing the place and status of the adoptive parents, they are nonetheless frequently associated with the process of searching and reuniting? [42].

[42]

Françoise Romaine OUELLETTE, Julie SAINT-PIERRE, “The quest for…. Thus, relations linked to origins do not really seem to compete with adoptive kinship. Rather, they compose a form of “kinship for oneself”, eminently linked to the construction of personal identities. A recent survey? [43]

[43]

Agnès MARTIAL, “A “kinship for oneself”. The quest for origins...with adopted persons shows that the quest process can be experienced as one of the modalities of the transition to adulthood, because it represents a form of emancipation with respect to the parents and the story transmitted on the adoption. When they materialize, the relations linked to origins then single out the person in his adoptive family, because he is the main actor and henceforth controls the circulation of information linked to these relations. In addition, it seems that these ties are not shared (for example within siblings of adopted children of different origins) and are transmitted little to the children of people who have found parents, brothers or sisters from birth. This "kinship for oneself" is also so due to its unregulated nature: once the first contacts have been established, these relationships, which do not respond to any legal rule, any more than to a shared code of conduct, are entirely subject to the will of the protagonists. They can nevertheless take place over time, maintained by distance exchanges as well as by various circulations of information, people and material and financial resources, often mobilized because of the economic inequalities which generally distinguish adopted persons from their families. of origin. These logics of solidarity intertwine a feeling of moral obligation and the fear of being exploited, sometimes leading maintained by distance exchanges as well as by various circulations of information, people and material and financial resources, often mobilized because of the economic inequalities that generally distinguish adopted persons from their family of origin. These logics of solidarity intertwine a feeling of moral obligation and the fear of being exploited, sometimes leading maintained by distance exchanges as well as by various circulations of information, people and material and financial resources, often mobilized because of the economic inequalities that generally distinguish adopted persons from their family of origin. These logics of solidarity intertwine a feeling of moral obligation and the fear of being exploited, sometimes leading to various voltages, or even to the interruption of the links. Once known, however, the connections resulting from the knowledge of origins never seem to die out entirely.

The relationship to origins in ART: from the donor to the "donnor siblings", uncertain links

17Relations linked to origins are even more uncertain, the circulation of information relating to the identity of the donor raising many questions. First of all, it conceals potential connections between the child, the donor and their respective parents, which go beyond the usual limits and the ordinary definitions of what a family is, leading the parents to modulate or limit the story of the gift in order to to guard against “excess kinship”? [44]

[44]

Monica Konrad, Nameless Relations. Anonymity, Melanesia and…. For comparable reasons, various studies observe that the stories transmitted in homoparental families often minimize the role of the donor? [45].

[45]

Martine GROSS, “Thirds of procreation in families…. Recent works also underline the role of children and people conceived by donation in decisions relating to the identification of the donor and the definition of his place. In families using a known donor, the negotiation preceding the donation often turns out to be incomplete. The place of the donor and the relationships linked to the gift are then clarified over time and the children, as they grow up, contribute to this redefinition? [46].

[46]

Isabelle COTE, “From the father to the progenitor through the third…. They thus position themselves as actors of their kinship, like people conceived by gift who learn their mode of conception later: negotiating an announcement that inevitably disrupts their personal and family narrative and puts their paternal relationship to the test, they reorganize their relational universe and become "rerelated" to their intended father? [47]

[47]

Anaïs Martin, 2022, op. cit.. In AMPD, the relationship with the donor is not the one that most frequently emerges from the trajectory of research into origins. Works? [48]

[48]

Rosanna HERTZ, Margaret K. NELSON, Random families. Genetics… note the predominance of collectives of people from the same gift, numerous and expandable groups, which take fraternal relations as a model without completely conforming to them. Constituted initially on the basis of a genetic correspondence, these groups nevertheless demonstrate the limits of biogenetic "truth" as the basis of kinship: the people who compose them distinguish very clearly these links from those which unite them to their brothers and sisters, rooted in their family history, but also of the position they occupy in relation to the donor's children, a position that is nevertheless identical from a strictly genetic point of view: the experience of conception by donation proves here decisive, and leads to the shaping of moving communities, where the rank of arrival, subjected to the time of assisted procreation as to that of the quest process replaces the criterion of the order of births. Alongside virtual exchanges (messaging or social network) and collective meetings, interpersonal links are formed based on affinity, which can however be interrupted at any time.?[49]

[49]

Anaïs Martin, 2021, art. cit..

Conclusion

18Adoption and assisted procreation have experienced, in recent decades, a profound redefinition of norms and practices relating to personal origins. The emergence and progressive recognition of a fundamental right of persons adopted or conceived by gift to know, when they express the need, the conditions of their birth, testify first of all to the value henceforth granted to the aspirations of individuals. in the construction of their personal identity. The institutional mechanisms aimed at making possible research through the Cnaop and the Cappad embody this recognition, but are at the same time already exceeded by the potentialities covered by the socio-digital spaces of communication and genetic genealogy. In fact, the right to origins already produces relations. These develop at the margins of adoptive or intentional kinship. They form new relational networks around people adopted or conceived by gift, whose common experience of adoption or conception by gift seems to be just as founding as biogenetic connections. Uncertain, procedural, subject to the effects of time and experience, they signal the emergence of new relational categories with shifting boundaries, testifying to the plurality of relations that make up contemporary family life. They form new relational networks around people adopted or conceived by gift, whose common experience of adoption or conception by gift seems to be just as founding as biogenetic connections. Uncertain, procedural, subject to the effects of time and experience, they signal the emergence of new relational categories with shifting boundaries, testifying to the plurality of relations that make up contemporary family life. They form new relational networks around the people adopted or conceived by gift, whose common experience of adoption or conception by gift seems just as founding as the biogenetic connections. Uncertain, procedural, subject to the effects of time and experience, they signal the emergence of new relational categories with shifting borders, testifying to the plurality of relations that make up contemporary family pathways.

Ratings

[1]

Ivan JABLONKA, Neither father nor mother. History of children in public assistance (1874-1939) , Seuil 2006; Antoine RIVIERE, "The quest for origins faced with the law of secrecy", Review of the history of "irregular" childhood , n° 11, 2009.

[2]

Nadine LEFAUCHEUR, “Childbirth under X and shadow mothers”, in Didier LE GALL, Yamina BETTAHAR (dir.), La pluriparentalité , Puf, 2001, pp. 139-175. Nadine LEFAUCHEUR, “From French tradition to the right to truth in biography – or the use of history in parliamentary debates on so-called X-ray childbirth”, Clio . History, Women and Societies , vol. 24, no. 2, 2006, pp. 273-290.

[3]

Judith MODELL, Kinship with Strangers: Adoption and Interpretations of Kinship in American Culture , Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994; Agnès FINE, Claire NEIRINCK (dir.), Blood parents, adoptive parents. Legal and anthropological approaches to adoption — France, Europe, USA, Canada , LGDJ, 2000.

[4]

Pierre VERDIER, Geneviève DELAISI, Nobody's Child , Odile Jacob, 1994.

[5]

Articles 7 and 8, Convention on the Rights of the Child (CIRDE) , adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20, 1989.

[6]

Cécile EMSELLEM, Born without a mother. Childbirth under X and filiation , Pur, 2004.

[7]

Art. 341 and 341-1 of the Civil Code. See Nadine LEFAUCHEUR, 2006, op. cit.

[8]

Nadine LEFAUCHEUR, 2001, op.cit.

[9]

Marie-Christine LE BOURSICOT, “Accessing one's personal origins. The role of the National Council for access to personal origins”, Social information , n° 146, 2008, p. 78-83.

[10]

Article L 222-6 of the Code of Social Action and Families.

[11]

Agnès MARTIAL, “The archives of origins. Traces and (dis)narrative continuities in child welfare cases (1995-2015)", Ethnologie française , vol. 50, no. 2, 2020, pp. 285-298.

[12]

Sign HOWELL, The Kinning of Foreigners. Transnational adoption in a global perspective , New York, Oxford, Bergham Books, 2006.

[13]

Art. 30, Hague Convention, 1993: “The competent authorities of a Contracting State shall ensure the preservation of the information which they hold on the origins of the child, in particular those relating to the identity of his mother and his father, as well as data on the medical history of the child and his family. They ensure that the child or his or her representative has access to this information, with appropriate counselling, to the extent permitted by the law of their State. »

[14]

Yves DENECHERE, Children from afar. History of international adoption in France , Armand Colin, 2011; Sébastien ROUX, “The State of Origins. Adoptive Stories, Biographical Conflicts, and Past Truths", Genesis , vol. 108, no. 3, 2017, pp. 69-88.

[15]

Jean-François MIGNOT, “International adoption around the world: the reasons for the decline”, Population & Societies , vol. 519, no. 2, p. 2

[16]

Françoise Romaine OUELLETTE, Julie SAINTPIERRE, “Relationship, citizenship and marital status of adoptees”, Childhoods, Families, Generations , n° 14, 2011, pp. 51-76.

[17]

Sébastien ROUX, Blood of ink. Survey on the end of international adoption , Éditions Vendémiaire, 2022.

[18]

Jean-François MIGNOT, 2015, art. cit., p. 2; Sebastien ROUX, 2021, art. cit.

[19]

Sign HOWELL, 2006, art. cit.

[20]

Barbara YNGVESSON, Belonging in an Adopted World. Race, Identity and Transnational Adoption , University of Chicago Press, 2010.

[21]

For example in France: Roots of Korea, Voice of Adoptees, Raif (Association for the Recognition of Illicit Adoptions in France), etc.

[22]

Irène THERY, Humans like the others. Bioethics, anonymity and gender of the gift , Éditions de l'EHESS, 2010.

[23]

Children born in ART represented approximately 3.4% of total births in 2018, 5% of them resulting from donated gametes. See Élise de LA ROCHEBROCHARD, “One in thirty children conceived through medically assisted procreation in France”, Population and Societies , No. 556, 2018.

[24]

For a detailed analysis of this evolution, see Anaïs MARTIN's thesis, La parenté d'après le don. A relational approach to the experience of people conceived by gift , Doctoral thesis in social anthropology and ethnology, EHESS, 2022.

[25]

Laurence BRUNET, “The principle of gamete donor anonymity put to the test of its context. Analysis of legal conceptions of identity”, in Pierre JOUANNET, Roger MIEUSSET Donner and after… Procreation by sperm donation with or without anonymity? , Springer, 2010, p. 235-252.

[26]

Hugues FULCHIRON, Jehanne SOSSON (dir.), Kinship, filiation, origins. Law and begetting to many , Bruylant, 2013.

[27]

Agnès FINE, "Multi-parenting and filiation system in Western societies", in Yamina BETTAHAR, Didier LE GALL, Multi-parenting , Puf, 2001, pp. 69-92.

[28]

Agnès MARTIAL, Be related. Ethnology of blended family ties , Éditions de la MSH, 2003. Florence WEBER, Thinking about kinship today. The strength of everyday life , Rue d'Ulm, 2013.

[29]

David SCHNEIDER, American Kinship: A Cultural Account , Englewood Cliffs, 1968, Prentice Hall.

[30]

For people born under secrecy, access to knowledge of origins has "no effect on the civil status and filiation" of the child and does not entail any legal consequences "for the benefit or at the expense of whomever whatever” (art. L. 147-7 of the CASF). “In the event of medically assisted procreation requiring the intervention of a third-party donor, no filiation link can be established between the author of the donation and the child resulting from medically assisted procreation” (art. 342-9 of the CC resulting from law n° 2021-1017 of August 2, 2021).

[31]

Laurence BRUNET, Michelle GIROUX, “What place for the right to the origins of the adopted child in France and in Quebec? », Childhood Families Generations , n° 37, 2021.

[32]

Agnès MARTIAL, “Multi-Parenthood and Contemporary Family Forms in French Studies”, Antropologia , vol. 6, no. 2, 2019, pp. 13-26.

[33]

Dominique MEMMI, The Revenge of the Flesh. Essay on the new supports of identity , Seuil, 2014. Jean-Hugues DECHAUX, “The gene attacking kinship? », Review of social and family policies , vol. 126, No. 1, 2018, p. 35-47.

[34]

Agnès FINE, Agnès MARTIAL, “Towards a naturalization of filiation? ”, Genesis , vol. 78, No. 1, 2010, p. 121-134.

[35]

Petra NORDQVIST, “The Drive for Openness in Donor Conception: Disclosure and The Trouble with Real Life”, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family , vol. 28, n°3, 2014, p. 321-338.

[36]

J. READINGS, L. BLAKE, P. CASEY, V. JADVA, S. GOLOMBOK, “Secrecy, disclosure and everything in-between: decisions of parents of children conceived by donor insemination, egg donation and surrogacy”, Reproductive BioMedicine Online , flight. 22, no. 5, 2011, pp. 485-495.

[37]

Anaïs MARTIN, 2022, op.cit.

[38]

This is what the adoptees interviewed by Agnès Martial testify to in a recent survey, cf. ANR Origins program ( https://www.anr-origines.fr/ )

[39]

Anaïs MARTIN, “Being from the same gift: sharing “origins” in medically assisted procreation with a third-party donor (United Kingdom, France)”, Enfances Familles Générations, n° 37, 2021 .

[40]

Johanne THOMSON-SWEENY, "Searching for origins on Facebook: what links between social media and the search for origins in international adoption?" », Childhood Families Generations , n° 37, 2021.

[41]

Janet CARSTEN, “Connections and Disconnections of Memory and Kinship in Narratives of Adoption Reunions in Scotland”, in Janet CARSTEN (ed.), Ghosts of Memory: Essays on Remembrance and Relatedness , Blackwell Publishing, 2007, pp. 83-103.

[42]

Françoise Romaine OUELLETTE, Julie SAINT-PIERRE, “The quest for origins in international adoption. Being at home and a stranger”, Social News , vol. 2, no. 146, 2008, pp. 84-91; Barbara YNGVESSON, 2010, op. cit.

[43]

Agnès MARTIAL, “A “kinship for oneself”. The quest for origins in adoption", Anthropologie et Sociétés , vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 101-118.

[44]

Monica Konrad, Nameless Relations. Anonymity, Melanesia and reproductive gift exchange between British ova donors and recipients , Berghan books, 2005.

[45]

Martine GROSS, "Thirds of procreation in homoparental families", Recherches Familiales , vol. 11, No. 1, 2014, p. 19-30.

[46]

Isabelle COTE, “From the father to the progenitor via the interested third party: representations of the role played by the known sperm donor in Quebec lesboparental families”, Enfances Familles Générations , n° 21, 2014, pp. 70-95. Alice Sophie SARCINELLI, Charlotte SIMON, “Three generations of lesboparental families in Italy and Belgium: transmission and practices linked to origins”, Enfances Familles Générations , n° 37, 2021.

[47]

Anaïs Martin, 2022, op. cit.

[48]

Rosanna HERTZ, Margaret K. NELSON, Random families. Genetic strangers, sperm donor siblings, and the creation of new kin, Oxford University Press, 2019.

[49]

Anaïs Martin, 2021, art. cit.

.