Womb Politics : A Short History of the Future of Human Reproduction

This book offers a vision of politics that govern the womb; from antiquity (‘be fertile and replenish the earth’), through the ages (hysterectomy, to extirpate women’s ‘hysteria’), up to the present time (abortion wars; assisted reproduction), and into the future (reprogenetics; the artificial womb). It explores how the womb has served humanity, either tacitly or explicitly, through the ages and examines how women have accepted and still perceive the rules created by men as natural - including the new anti-abortion laws in the USA - because ‘that is the way things are.’ The book also explores how the emerging of assisted reproduction technologies and novel genetic tools (reprogenetics) will pose additional challenges to womb bearers, as all women will be made to reproduce with IVF. What is more, the advent of the artificial womb is in sight; the gender and social implications of this development would be enormous. Certainly not just another organ, the womb has been and remains a powerful tool that cannot be left to the decisions of half of the population. This book engages a wide audience, including women and men, professionals and laypersons who are interested in gender, politics, legislation, women’s health, and ethics.

Frida Simonstein is Visiting Scholar at the School of Public Health, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. She holds a PhD in Health Care Ethics and Law from the Center of Social Ethics and Policy at the University of Manchester in the UK and an MSc in Human Genetics from the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University in Israel. She has been Visiting Scholar at the WHO in Geneva, at the Hastings Center in New York, at the Institute of Medicine and Law at Liverpool University in the UK, at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart in Germany, and at the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London in the UK.  Her publications include a book for the Library of Health Law at the University of Haifa, titled ‘Self-Evolution, The Ethics of Redesigning Eden’ (2004), a cooperative volume for Springer, ‘Reprogenetics and the Future of Gender’ (ed., 2009), and papers in reviewed journals. She has actively participated in international congresses around the world. At present, she is a board member of the European Society for the Philosophy of Medicine and Health (ESPMH).