Review Ecology & Politics devotes its latest issue to the artificialization of pregnancy. We learn that, after the development of medically assisted procreation techniques, biotechnology researchers are working on «developing a way to conceive and develop the human embryo outside the female body”. Some technical obstacles remain, but the use of the artificial uterus to “raise” an embryo to term without passing through the womb would no longer belong to science fiction.
While doctors, entrepreneurs or philosophers rejoice that soon “woman’s body” no longer be “the necessary place of gestation”, the journal’s contributors are concerned about this shift. According to them, the passage of the act of “give birth” to that of “produce a child” is not neutral. It is accompanied by a fantasy of the perfect child, whose faults can be corrected in advance, and is based on a rationalized process similar to “factory farming”. Italian feminist Silvia Guerini worries about the curious world “without mothers” which he inaugurates.
Defended on the left
Ces ” technological advances “ are nevertheless defended on the left, including by environmental activists surprisingly faithful to the mantra of industrial society: « Everything you imagine you can create must be. » The philosopher Renaud Garcia even accuses feminist and LGBT + currents of building “social acceptability” practices that would not constitute true human progress.
Throughout the contributions, the over-medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth is also questioned. The editorial staff takes great care to specify that it defends “the importance of medical intervention when it is necessary”, but the subject is controversial, and a “counterpoint article” is announced for the next issue.