Hoje em dia só engravida quem quiser?: mulheres, reprodução e desigualdades nos serviços públicos de saúde em Maceió-AL

Abstract

This dissertation has as general objective discuss the meanings and practices related to reproduction, with special interest in the way women interpret and experience these discourses. Adopting the Sociology and Health Anthropology perspective, this research started from the understanding that reproduction is a social phenomenon whose meanings are constructed throughout history and from values and cultural beliefs that change continuously. The research data were obtained with ethnography support and started at a public health unit that integrates the basic care level in the city of Maceió-AL. The informants were women seeking reproductive health services and professionals working with this demand. As a result, a context permeated by inadequacies of public health assistance was registered, highlighting the SUS representation as a health plan focused on the poor, whose impasses reproduce inequalities. The relationship between professionals and users is marked by tensions and conflicts arising largely from dissatisfactions on the structure provided by the public health system. This context of limited rights further accentuates the difficulties women experience in their reproductive lives. Continuing, there was a register of traditional gender perspectives that set reproduction as a mainly female responsibility. In this field, it was also identified the gap between biomedical language and users beliefs and knowledge, creating distrust and criticism of women. In general, the data indicate the importance of actions that are committed to promoting the autonomy of women, giving space for the choices and the female diversity, building therefore a citizenship based on activities that question the deterministic and traditional views of gender.