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The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) defines the act of travelling abroad to undergo reproductive medical treatments, including assisted reproduction technology (ART) treatments as cross-border reproductive care. The experiences of patients seeking affordable reproductive care abroad have been widely studied in the last decades (Bergman, 2011a, 2011b; Blyth, 2010; Bracewell-Milnes et al., 2016; Culley et al., 2011; Guerzoni, 2017; Hudson, 2017, 2020; Hudson & Culley, 2011; Kroløkke, 2014a, 2014b; Rodino, Goedeke, & Nowoweiski, 2014; Salama et al., 2018; Shenfield et al., 2010; Van Hoof, Pennings, & De Sutter, 2016; Whittaker, Inhorn, & Shenfield, 2019; Zanini, 2011). However, French women and couples pursuing ART treatments abroad have received little scholarly attention until now. In this chapter, we aim to address this gap in the literature with the results from an ethnographic study conducted with French women and couples who seek ART treatments in Barcelona (Spain) using data from participant observation and in-depth interviews. We begin by discussing the European reproscape, introducing French and Spanish ART legislation, to explain why a large number of citizens are excluded from the French system of reproductive governance and why they choose Spain as their destination. Then, we will discuss the obstacles faced during the reproductive journey, and the impacts of this journey on the embodiment of the treatments are explored, in order to show how French women and couples handle the physical, emotional and cultural displacements that their reproductive project entails.

Starting from an event occurring in 2018, I consider burials of abortive remains as a battleground for reproductive governances. Public debate on pregnancy loss is often intertwined with the abortion debate. In Italy this association caused a considerable delay in implementing practices recommended by international guidelines on pregnancy loss. In this essay, I analyse burial regulations and the ways in which they are enforced asking what is at stake when the State, the regions, the Catholic Church, healthcare and cemetery professionals and women undergoing a termination or a pregnancy loss decide what to do with bodily remains. What is the meaning of these peculiar dead bodies? How are they publicly named? What are the effects of the actions performed on fetal remains over the lived experiences of women and couples with different reproductive histories? Who has the right to make decisions over these peculiar bodies and relationships?

Based on a long-term ethnography on abortion and pregnancy loss in Italy, I explore the inherent complexity of these questions, arguing that burial practices conflict with abortion rights when they signify the body unequivocally, separating it from social and intimate relationships, fixing its identity and determining the conditions for its recognition. Human flesh, sociologically understood (Memmi, 2014), is both material and symbolic: a fluctuating reality that takes on different meanings and affects over time within relationships.