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The Future of Mothering: Reproductive Technology and Feminist Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Anne Donchin
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Abstract

An exploration of (I) alternative perspectives toward recent innovations in reproductive technology: support for new techniques for the sake of the kind of feminist future they facilitate; unqualified opposition despite therapeutic benefit to individual women; or qualified opposition depending upon specific threats to women's interests and (II) relationships between these positions and values bound up with mothering practices.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 1 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Motherhood and Sexuality , Fall 1986 , pp. 121 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by Hypatia, Inc.

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References

Notes

1 A notable exception is a recent collection edited by Joan Rothchild (1983).

2 In the summer of 1984 the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversights heard testimony on the new reproductive technologies with the intent of eventually introducing appropriate regulative legislation (U.S. 1985).

3 See, for instance, two recent philosophical works: Glover (1984) and Singer and Wells (1984).

4 Comments of Simone Novaes have been most helpful to me in efforts to understand the complex motivations of women seeking these technologies. I am grateful, too, for the valued insights of two unnamed reviewers.

5 This argument was first suggested to me in a discussion of Ramsey's position by Samuel Gorovitz (1982).

6 I do not discuss other individual ‘moderate interventionists’ at length here only because their arguments are not directly pertinent to the issues I emphasize. However, the regulatory bodies that I do refer to—the British Warnock Committee and the Australian and Canadian commissions—all adopt versions of a moderate interventionist position. Also, most legal commentators and scientific researchers fall into this category. Some have no principled objections to the new technologies at all; others support innovations only selectively. All of them seek regulation principally to maintain continuity with prevailing liberal values.

7 Several states have already considered legislation that would bind both parties to surrogate contracts. Both Kentucky and Michigan have ruled against it.

8 Gena Corea (1985) offers much empirical evidence in support of this position.