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The Politics of Reproduction: New Technologies of Life

2009 February 22
by Anne Dalke

Even more a propos of our work, another looks-to-be-important conference,
upcoming @ Barnard next Saturday: “The Politics of Reproduction:
New Technologies of Life,” will explore the social and
ethical questions raised by new ways of creating families:

Do these new technologies place women and children at risk?

How should we respond ethically to the ability of these
technologies to test for genetic illnesses?

How can we ensure that marginalized individuals have
equal access to these new technologies and adoption practices?

How do we ensure that transnational surrogacy and adoption practices are not exploitative?

Panelists include Wendy Chavkin, Dana-Ain Davis, Sarah Franklin,
Faye Ginsburg, Michele Goodwin, Iris Lopez, Rayna Rapp, Loretta Ross,
along with many other scholars, artists, and activists.
Students can come to the conference for free, and you can register online.

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One Response
  1. Hillary permalink
    February 22, 2009

    I have just spent the last 3 classes of my Biology and Public policy talking about just these issues. One of the ways we thought this technology could be made more accessible to marginalized groups is to get health care to pay for at least part of it.

    In general the problem with this technology is that there is almost no regulation of it (that is how we get a woman with octuplets). I think to help insure the health of the women and children involved we need regulation of how many embryos the doctors put in and come up with a way to make it less expensive so women don’t pressure doctors to put lots of embryos in at once.

    Also there needs to be more regulation of surrogacy. Currently in the US it is illegal to create a contract with a surrogate. You can have a surrogate, but you can’t create a contract because that is considered to be akin to slavery and the buying and selling of humans, which is very illegal.

    I was wondering what people in this class think of the case of India where it IS legal to have a contract with a surrogate. Do you think legalizing surrogacy will help the process and make sure people don’t get taken advantage of?

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