ABSTRACT
This chapter writes for three very simple reasons: that human reproduction is necessary for the continuance of the species; that a significant section of the women’s movement sees reproduction as the source of female oppression. It describes science and technology are continuing to make rapid advances in the regulation and modification of reproduction. Advances over the past one hundred years in the science and technology of regulating reproduction have created the possibility that women, without limiting their sexual activity, can choose if and when to bear children. For the radical feminists, who advocate political lesbianism, the central problem is that of the continued reproduction of the species. One main thesis of radical feminism asserts the biological basis of women’s social inferiority, and has been most forcefully developed by Shulamith Firestone. The question of reproduction is thus set constantly against the position of women and their struggle for liberation. For the social problems that confront woman a technological fix is prescribed.
