The Biopolitics of Parental Access: Cross-Readings of Transnational Adoption and Surrogacy in Denmark and Norway

Abstract

This article introduces the notion of the “biopolitics of parental access” as an analytical lens to examine how different forms of reproductive governance support and enable parental access. Through a cross-reading of political and administrative documents relating to the regulation of, respectively, transnational adoption in Denmark and transnational surrogacy in Norway, we examine the logics and techniques that inform the reproductive governance of parental access. Drawing attention to the racialized entanglement of pro- and anti-natalism, the analysis shows how access to parenthood for Danish and Norwegian citizens is continued and secured through the annihilation of the parenthood of surrogate mothers and families losing children to adoption. While the concrete logics and techniques of reproductive governance differ in the two cases, the result—access to parenthood—is similar.