Reproductive Technologies And The Battle Over Women’s Freedom
Janice G. Raymond
In an age of in vitro fertilization (IVF), sex predetermination, embryo transfer, and reproductive contracts, women have become abstract entities called “surrogates,” “population polluters,” “maternal environments,” and “human incubators.” The rhetoric around reproductive technologies is, according to Raymond, part of the problem itself. Media reports of the “epidemic” of infertility among western women have been exaggerated and the success rate of IVF overstated in order to create a market for increasingly high-tech and expensive technologies. At the same time that fertility technologies are hyped in the west, infertility technologies are promoted in the so-called third world. Women as Wombs is a critical feminist analysis that contributes groundbreaking insights to the debate over reproductive technology and its ethical, legal, and political implications.
Review:
“…it is hard to resist her conclusion that many reproductive experiments can represent another form of violence against women. Highly recommended.”
— Library Review Journal