ABSTRACT
New reproductive technologies and surrogacy arrangements are subtly altering women’s lives by making conception, gestation, and birth something that predominately male authorities increasingly monitor, examine, and control. Motherhood is powerfully shaped by culture (Firestone 1970; Bernard 1974; Rich 1976; Chodorow 1978; Ruddick 1980; O’Brien 1981; Dworkin 1983:173-88; Sevenhuijsen and Vries 1984; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule 1986; Martin 1987; Tong 1989: chap. 3; Duden 1993). Even though motherhood has never had much power and prestige in many societies (despite the sweet talk about “motherhood and apple pie”), one power women did have was their ability to gestate and give birth to babies. Many feminists are very wary of these new reproductive arrangements, given the disappointing track record of the medical profession’s treatment of women (Rich 1976; Daly 1978; Ehrenreich and English 1978; S. Rothman 1978: 142-53; Graham and Oakley 1981; B. K. Rothman 1982; Edwards and Waldorf 1984; Oakley 1984; Pollock 1984; Corea 1985a, 1985b; Farrant 1985:103; Fisher 1986; Martin 1987; Dutton, Preston, and Pfund 1988, especially the case study on DES; Rowland 1992). Feminist scholars are also justly skeptical about modern science given its history and ethic of dominance, control, and insensitivity to women’s lives (Griffin 1978; Merchant 1980; Gould 1981; Rothschild 1983; Bleier 1984; Arnold and Faulkner 1985; Keller 1985; Harding 1986; Rosser 1986, 1989).
