(Download) "Buns in the Oven: Objectification, Surrogacy, And Women's Autonomy (Critical Essay)" by Social Theory and Practice * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Buns in the Oven: Objectification, Surrogacy, And Women's Autonomy (Critical Essay)
- Author : Social Theory and Practice
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 244 KB
Description
Since reaching fever pitch in the 1990s, academic debate regarding commodification and exploitation in commercial surrogacy has waned considerably. Still, continuing technological advances and the globalization of reproductive technologies make contract pregnancy an increasingly relevant issue in social and health policy. A number of feminist philosophers have forcefully argued a case in support of commercial surrogate pregnancy, based on the idea that reconstructing pregnancy as a productive, economic endeavor shifts the boundaries of the public/private dichotomy. (1) They claim that insofar as contract pregnancy disengages women from the stereotypes that assume a "natural" domesticity in their labor, women's autonomy is enhanced. I take this argument seriously, given that the public/private dichotomy and the historical exclusion of women from the means of production have been sources of ongoing oppression for women, the reach of which extends far beyond commercial surrogacy. An examination of the norms and practices that operate within the industry will show that commercial surrogacy fails to enhance either the surrogate's autonomy or women's autonomy more generally. The culture that exists within contract pregnancy engenders a number of morally problematic attitudes toward the surrogate, namely, objectification. Employing Martha Nussbaum's analysis of the concept, (2) I argue that objectification in surrogacy diminishes autonomy through its effects on self-respect. I follow Nussbaum not because the issue of objectification has been ignored, but because there are important ways in which objectification in commercial surrogacy is both similar to, and distinct from, that which occurs in typical pregnancies as well as in wage labor. As pregnancy and wage labor inform the broader social context within which surrogacy is located, a comprehensive examination of the industry needs to consider the forms of objectification occurring in each of these domains. Nussbaum's framework also provides a way to examine how the industry may be partially (rather than wholly) objectifying, and how partial objectification may still diminish autonomy.
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