The article deals with the reproduction of old representations of childhood in(post) modernity. Through an analysis of a wide-ranging public debate triggered in Slovenia in 2000-2002 with regard to the proposed law on artificial insemination, it demonstrates that today the child is still constituted chiefly as a property of adults, which is exactly what the patriarchy was reproached for. It critically focuses on the liberal argumentation in the debate, which failed to problematize the issue of the ownership of children, and demanded only its extension to other segments of the adult population, which the child traditionally did not belong to (in particular women, homosexuals and physically handicapped persons). Through this perspective, the article also problematizes the social construct of protective childhood, and the controversial concepts of children's rights and needs.
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