Jan 1, 2020 01:55 AM
(This post was last modified: Jan 1, 2020 04:58 AM by C C.)
https://aeon.co/ideas/is-artificial-womb...liberation
EXCERPT (Nigel Warburton): While some women experience pregnancy and childbirth as joyful, natural and fulfilling, others find themselves recoiling in horror [...] and even more so at the potential brutality of giving birth. Some might view the blood, sweat and tears as a necessary and unavoidable part of life. Others, such as the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone ... assume a less forgiving view of the process as ‘barbaric’ or akin to ‘shitting a pumpkin’. Most, like myself, oscillate between the two positions, or else sit somewhere in between.
Whatever one’s position on the matter of the ‘naturalness’ of pregnancy, it can’t be denied that the development of artificial-womb technology (known as ectogenesis) would radically change the debate. [...] First, there are the therapeutic benefits it promises ... Second, the technology could have important social benefits for women...
[...] Even this cursory overview of the therapeutic and nontherapeutic potential of artificial wombs seems to present a compelling case in the technology’s favour. Add to this list the many more people for whom it would make reproduction possible, and this case becomes near airtight. So, in 2017, when researchers successfully developed eight lamb foetuses in bags mimicking the conditions of a sheep’s uterus, the mainstream media attention was hardly surprising. Despite the researchers’ best efforts, their findings were recast as advancing the development of artificial wombs and, through this process, decades-old arguments such as Firestone’s were thrust back into the spotlight.
It’s true that Firestone’s claims are still well-supported among contemporary feminists [...] but the renewed excitement surrounding artificial wombs obscures the fact that the technology’s emancipatory potential is in reality quite limited.
For one, artificial wombs could ensure the fair redistribution of reproductive labour only if this labour was limited to the process of pregnancy itself. But, post-birth, it remains true that it’s (largely) women who are expected to breastfeed, pump milk, and raise and nurture the child. This doesn’t preclude those others who can and do partake in what is traditionally regarded as maternal work from the conversation, but it does remind us of the stigma and censure directed at those women who do not – whether by choice or otherwise. In this context, it’s unclear what artificial wombs would do to address the social conditions that can make reproduction so oppressive in the first place.
[...] a closer inspection of the metaphysical entanglements of artificial-womb technology indicates the potential to harm the liberation effort instead. [...] the philosopher Suki Finn describes two metaphysical models of pregnancy that are said to capture current Western understandings of the process. ... The second, the ‘container model’, describes the foetus and gestating person as two separate entities, which gives rise to the culturally dominant ‘foetal container model’.
[...] Though relatively innocuous in its daily use, the container model has been applied to more detrimental lengths too ... fertility clinics capitalising on this separateness between gestators and foetuses have developed dehumanising prenatal care practices that, among other things, serve to emphasise surrogate disposability. What this shows is that the metaphysical container view might be morally neutral, but its cultural manifestation has developed and is currently utilised in a patriarchal context.
[...] The problem for feminists ... is that any technology deploying the principles of a problematic model of pregnancy could unwittingly lead to its normalisation or the perpetuation of these same problems. In this context, the devaluation of gestative work and the diminishing of the maternal-foetal relationship can be viewed only as antithetical to the feminist cause.
While it cannot be denied that artificial wombs might still benefit a great number of people, of whom women form only part, it is worth questioning their particular usefulness as a feminist tool for liberation – speculatively or otherwise. In this context, artificial wombs could certainly alleviate the physical constraints currently faced by some women; but, without addressing the patriarchal models on which it might itself be built, the technology’s liberatory potential overall remains limited. (MORE - details)
EXCERPT (Nigel Warburton): While some women experience pregnancy and childbirth as joyful, natural and fulfilling, others find themselves recoiling in horror [...] and even more so at the potential brutality of giving birth. Some might view the blood, sweat and tears as a necessary and unavoidable part of life. Others, such as the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone ... assume a less forgiving view of the process as ‘barbaric’ or akin to ‘shitting a pumpkin’. Most, like myself, oscillate between the two positions, or else sit somewhere in between.
Whatever one’s position on the matter of the ‘naturalness’ of pregnancy, it can’t be denied that the development of artificial-womb technology (known as ectogenesis) would radically change the debate. [...] First, there are the therapeutic benefits it promises ... Second, the technology could have important social benefits for women...
[...] Even this cursory overview of the therapeutic and nontherapeutic potential of artificial wombs seems to present a compelling case in the technology’s favour. Add to this list the many more people for whom it would make reproduction possible, and this case becomes near airtight. So, in 2017, when researchers successfully developed eight lamb foetuses in bags mimicking the conditions of a sheep’s uterus, the mainstream media attention was hardly surprising. Despite the researchers’ best efforts, their findings were recast as advancing the development of artificial wombs and, through this process, decades-old arguments such as Firestone’s were thrust back into the spotlight.
It’s true that Firestone’s claims are still well-supported among contemporary feminists [...] but the renewed excitement surrounding artificial wombs obscures the fact that the technology’s emancipatory potential is in reality quite limited.
For one, artificial wombs could ensure the fair redistribution of reproductive labour only if this labour was limited to the process of pregnancy itself. But, post-birth, it remains true that it’s (largely) women who are expected to breastfeed, pump milk, and raise and nurture the child. This doesn’t preclude those others who can and do partake in what is traditionally regarded as maternal work from the conversation, but it does remind us of the stigma and censure directed at those women who do not – whether by choice or otherwise. In this context, it’s unclear what artificial wombs would do to address the social conditions that can make reproduction so oppressive in the first place.
[...] a closer inspection of the metaphysical entanglements of artificial-womb technology indicates the potential to harm the liberation effort instead. [...] the philosopher Suki Finn describes two metaphysical models of pregnancy that are said to capture current Western understandings of the process. ... The second, the ‘container model’, describes the foetus and gestating person as two separate entities, which gives rise to the culturally dominant ‘foetal container model’.
[...] Though relatively innocuous in its daily use, the container model has been applied to more detrimental lengths too ... fertility clinics capitalising on this separateness between gestators and foetuses have developed dehumanising prenatal care practices that, among other things, serve to emphasise surrogate disposability. What this shows is that the metaphysical container view might be morally neutral, but its cultural manifestation has developed and is currently utilised in a patriarchal context.
[...] The problem for feminists ... is that any technology deploying the principles of a problematic model of pregnancy could unwittingly lead to its normalisation or the perpetuation of these same problems. In this context, the devaluation of gestative work and the diminishing of the maternal-foetal relationship can be viewed only as antithetical to the feminist cause.
While it cannot be denied that artificial wombs might still benefit a great number of people, of whom women form only part, it is worth questioning their particular usefulness as a feminist tool for liberation – speculatively or otherwise. In this context, artificial wombs could certainly alleviate the physical constraints currently faced by some women; but, without addressing the patriarchal models on which it might itself be built, the technology’s liberatory potential overall remains limited. (MORE - details)