THE MORE THINGS CHANGE ... : ABORTION POLITICS & THE REGULATION OF ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY
Abortion and assisted reproductive technology (“ART”) may seem paradoxical in reproductive health: a woman seeks to terminate a pregnancy in the first, while a woman goes through herculean attempts to attain one in the latter. In fact, they share fundamental concerns: women’s health and autonomy. Both include medical procedures, with potential health risks and benefits, and both help a woman choose whether and when to become a mother. Abortion and ART share another commonality: when these issues enter public and political discourse, consideration of women’s health often recedes into the background. This response to articles by June Carbone and Jody Lynee Madeira suggests that issues central to the development of abortion-related regulation and jurisprudence have the potential to drive the development of ART and related law.
The Inauspicious Regulatory Beginnings of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
With recent advancements in the field of genetic engineering and its biotechnology applications, scientists have been able to develop new technologies to assist in human reproduction. While seemingly presented as a medical utopia (the answer to infertility, the end to genetic diseases, etc.), assisted reproductive technologies (ART) also present serious ethical and regulatory challenges. The lack of a strong regulatory framework in the United States raises immediate ethical concerns about ART: “family balancing” through sex-selective abortions, eugenic practices, and the implications of outsourcing surrogacy to developing countries, to name a few. In addition, these ethical challenges fall squarely into the realm of biopolitical debates. Not only does the state exert power over the life and bodies of its citizens in other spheres, the government’s regulation of reproduction (or the lack thereof) even influences who its future citizens will be, with potentially dystopian results.
Envisioning a future for reproductive liberty: strategies for making the rights real.
The US Supreme Court prevents poor women and young women from gaining equal access to reproductive choice. The 1990s will likely usher in a considerable reduction in or eliminate reproductive rights even for adult women who can pay for choices now protected by the US Constitution. 2 reproductive rights lawyers examine strategies and goals of groups committed to preserving abortion rights and to realize a broader view of reproductive freedom. In so drafting and studying these pro choice strategies they propose useful and politically realistic guidelines toward choice-protective social change. They also review the current status of the struggle to remind pro choice activists what they hope to accomplish and to prepare them to take the steps needed to reach their goal. One section of their commentary expounds on the principles of reproductive freedom equality and choice that should be deemed as inalienable and universal. These principles form the base of a notion of reproductive liberty much greater than that guaranteed by the Supreme Courts interpretation of the federal constitution in Roe v. Wade. People clinging to the traditional view of womens role in society strongly oppose this concept. Another section discusses efforts to defend reproductive rights bit by bit in state and federal courts and legislatures against discouraging measures designed to restrict or prohibit reproductive choice. The lawyers use 3 historic womens struggles as lessons to be learned for future actions: the suffrage movement the early birth control and abortion rights movements and the campaign to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment. The last section spells out ways to continue the struggle for reproductive rights. The 1st step is to continue where womens groups left off after Roe v. Wade: rebuild the grassroots movement and a network of strong local coalitions.