Bodily Exchanges, Bioethics and Border Crossing: Perspectives on Giving, Selling and Sharing Bodies

Medical therapy, research and technology enable us to make our bodies, or parts of them, available to others in an increasing number of ways. This is the case in organ, tissue, egg and sperm donation as well as in surrogate motherhood and clinical research. Bringing together leading scholars working on the ethical, social and cultural aspects of such bodily exchanges, this cutting-edge book develops new ways of understanding them.

Bodily Exchanges, Bioethics and Border Crossing both probes the established giving and selling frameworks for conceptualising bodily exchanges in medicine, and seeks to develop and examine another, less familiar framework: that of sharing. A framework of sharing can capture practices that involve giving up and giving away part of one’s body, such as organ and tissue donation, and practices that do not, such as surrogacy and research participation. Sharing also recognizes the multiple relationalities that these exchanges can involve and invites inquiry into the context in which they occur. In addition, the book explores the multiple forms of border crossing that bodily exchanges in medicine involve, from the physical boundaries of the body to relational borders – as can happen in surrogacy – to national borders and the range of ethical issues that these various border-crossings can give rise to.

Engaging with anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and feminist and postcolonical perspectives, this is an original and timely contribution to contemporary bioethics in a time of increasing globalization. It will be of use to students and researchers from a range of humanities and social science backgrounds as well as medical and other healthcare professionals with an interest in bioethics.

Erik Malmqvist, PhD, is Lecturer in Philosophy of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the Department of Thematic Studies: Technology and Social Change, Linköping University, Sweden. His research interests include ethical issues in organ and tissue transplantation, biomedical research, assisted reproduction and vaccination. Currently his research focuses on the ethics of international clinical research and of commodifying the human body. His publications have appeared in journals such as The Lancet, Bioethics, Hastings Center Report, Journal of Medical Ethics and Journal of Applied Philosophy.

Kristin Zeiler, PhD, is Senior Lecturer and Docent at the Department of Thematic Studies: Technology and Social Change, Linköping University, Sweden, and Pro Futura Scientia Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala University, Sweden. Zeiler examines ethical, social and cultural aspects of biotechnological interventions and explores how medical treatment, the use of new technology and experience of pain and illness can form our ways of engaging with others and the world, and inform our self-understandings. Her research areas include medical humanities, bioethics, philosophy of medicine and feminist theory, and among her publications is the edited volume (with L.F. Käll) Feminist Phenomenology and Medicine (2014). Zeiler’s articles have appeared in journals such as Bioethics, Feminist Theory and Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy.