Dr. Greta Gaard, Dept. of English, UWRF Presentation for The University of Wisconsin

1. “Reproductive Technology, or Reproductive Justice? An Ecofeminist, Environmental Justice Perspective on the Rhetoric of Choice” Dr. Greta Gaard, Dept. of English, UWRFPresentation for The University of Wisconsin 32nd Annual Women’s Studies Conference April 4-5, 2008 at UW-Green Bay Women and Environment: Literary, Scientific, and Cultural Perspectives

2. Women’s Reproductive Control: A History • Prefeminist history • 20th c. options of private contraception and abortion • From private to public contraception and abortion: • The Pill (1960) Roe v. Wade (1973) • Anti-feminist backlash (1980s-present) • Anti-choice movement -> Pro-Life • Pro-Choice movement & privacy framework • Choice coopted by conservative Pro-Life • => Choice to keep an unplanned pregnancy • => Choice to use reproductive technologies

3. Popular culture examples of antifeminist “choice” "Juno" (2007) “Little Girl Lost” CityPages (3/12/2008) • 16-yr-old’s “choice” to go full-term and give up the child • Abortion clinic as “depressing” • No examination of Mifepristone (RU-486) • No analysis of separation effects on birth mothers • Open adoption from 20-something mother of 3 to infertile couple backfires through failure to file legal papers severing birth mother’s right to child • After baby spends two months with 1st-chosen adoptive parents, birth mother chooses to give baby to a different couple • Does a birth mother stop thinking of her child after giving it up for adoption? • What did the baby want?

4. Why are these “choices” antifeminist? Two more popular culture examples “Miracles for Sale” Mpls. Star/Tribune (10/21/2007) “The Oprah Winfrey Show” (10/9/2007) • Choice of infertile couples to pay $15,000 to egg donor agencies • Choice of egg donors who earn $6,000-$20,000 • No mention of dangers of egg donation for donor, or psychological implications for child produced thereby • “Wombs for Rent” • “Choice” of 1st world white couple to use IVF • “Choice” of white egg donor • “Choice” of surrogates in India, only $6,000 • Race & class inequities, women as womb slaves

5. Feminist Perspectives on the New Reproductive Technologies • Who benefits? Who pays? • The egg donors • The infertile couple • The surrogates • The children/products • The medical-industrial complex • Reinforcing race and class privilege • Privatizing & medicalizing reproductive health problems—ignoring root causes that would require radical changes

6. The process of NRTs Egg donors undergo at least these three steps: • Lupron – a drug used to shut down a woman’s ovaries before multiple egg extraction • Pergonal – one of several drugs used to (offshoots include Humegon, Fertinex, Repronex, Gonal-F, and Follistim) • Egg extraction from the ovaries through laparascope Fertilisation & Implantation– • IVF (in a laboratory, embryos grow, some are selected for implantation in the uterus) • Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer (mixed & transferred to fallopian tubes) • Zygote Intrafallopian Transfer (fertilised & transferred)

7. Health Concerns in Shutting down Ovaries (Lupron) • rashes, vasodilation, burning sensations, tingling, itching, headaches/migraines, dizziness, hives, hair loss, severe joint pain, difficulty breathing, chest pain, nausea, depression, emotional instability, loss of libido, dimness of vision, fainting, weakness, amnesia, hypertension, rapid heart rate, muscular pain, bone pain, insomnia, edema, chronic enlargement of the thyroid, liver function abnormality, anxiety, vertigo • Norsigian 2005

8. Health Concerns in Hyperstimulating the Ovaries • Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) • Development of cysts, enlargement of the ovaries, massive fluid buildup in the body • Potentially fatal • Increased risk of clotting disorders, kidney damage, ovarian twisting • Associated with life-threatening pulmonary conditions in FDA trials: thromboembolic events, pulmonary embolism, pulmonary infarction, strokes, arterial occlusion with loss of a limb, & death (Norsigian 1995)

9. Rhetorics of “Choice” vs. Reproductive Justice Choice (continued) • Privatizes the decisions surrounding childbearing • Has led to conflicts between individual and community • Has led to (real or perceived) conflicts between the woman and the embryo or fetus • Provides no rhetorical protection against creating “designer” babies (eugenics) • Can be used to promote regressive gender roles & framed as an opposition to “life” • Undercuts demands for public funding of abortion • Appeals to those who have options, but is meaningless to those who don’t, hence politically divisive • Choice + failure to oppose population control reinforces the disparity btw. WMW women & low income women & WOC worldwide • Weak ethical framework, esp.when counterposed w/“life”

10. Reproductive Justice • Reproductive maternal and infant health & health equity across race, class, sexuality, & nation • Reproductive rights (legal protections, privacy, state regulation) • Challenges potential eugenic outcomes of NRTs • Provides a conceptual framework for challenging the exploitation of women’s bodies and reproductive capacities • Contextual socioeconomic environment, but not the ecological environment

11. Ecofeminism, Environmental Justice, and Environmental Health • Breast Cancer and Environmental Health: ecofeminism in the 1990s • Toxic waste, race & class: environmental justice in 1990s • Endocrine-disruptors, phthalates, PCBs, organochlorines, pesticides -> animal/human health • Our Stolen Future (1996) • Living Downstream (1998) , Having Faith (2003) • Challenged Conceptions: Environmental Chemicals and Fertility (2005) • = Decreased fertility among economic elites, and environmental degradation esp. among economically disadvantaged

12. Findings from Environmental Health (Stanford/Vallombrosa Study 2005) Scope of Infertility Problem High priority compounds include (but are not limited to): • 12% of the reproductive age population in the U. S., or 7.3 million couples, reports difficulty conceiving and/or carrying a pregnancy to term • CDC data shows impaired fecundity over the last two decades increased in all reproductive age groups, but most sharply in younger women (under age 25) • In 2002, an estimated $2.9 billion was spent on infertility treatments in the US. Now, some 46,000 (or one in 100) babies born to Americans each year are conceived as a result of NRTs. • one fifth or more of treated couples do not end up with a baby after a course of ART cycles •  current-use pesticides • phthalates • bisphenol A • brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) • perfluorinated compounds(PFCs) • octyl/nonylphenols

13. 2nd & 3rd Wave Feminisms & Natural Mothering • Second-wave feminism • Mothering magazine; Suzanne Arms, Immaculate Deception: Myth, Magic & Birth (1975; Repr. 1994); Ehrenreich & English, For Her Own Good (1978); Rich, Of Woman Born (1976); Ruddick, Maternal Thinking (1989) • Janice Raymond, Andrea Dworkin, Catherine Mackinnon • Third-wave feminism, natural mothering, & maternal activisms • Books & Magazines: Breeder (2001), HipMama (1993) • Internet: Brain, Child; Literary Mama; Rock the Cradle blog • Radio: Mombo • Activisms: MomsRising, MothersMovement • Attachment Parenting (Sears 1999) • Baby wearing, cosleeping, extended breastfeeding

14. Shifting Rhetorics: From “Choice” to Reproductive and Environmental Justice Feminism & Reproductive Justice Feminism & Environmental Justice • Safe & affordable contraception, including abortion • Prenatal, infant, & maternal health care • Economic support for family caregiving • Rethinking gender, sexuality & culture • Women’s primary value not confined to motherhood • Challenging compulsory heterosexuality • Interrogating masculinity • Preceding, plus: • Ban on endocrine-disrupting chemicals • Precautionary Principle for Env. Chemicals & NRTs • More stringent regulations on NRTs to protect the physical & mental health of egg donors, birth mothers, gestational mothers, and children alike • Workplace health regulations to include reproductive health • Resisting eugenics in national and int’l. medical, pharmaceutical, & corporate interventions into reproductive rights

15. Social Justice Movements Environmental Perspectives Feminism Civil Rights Env. Sciences Env. Justice Mvmt. 2nd Wave 3rd Wave Ecofeminism Reproductive & Environmental Health Feminism & Science Maternal Activisms Consumption, Population, & Sustainability Ecological, Feminist, & Reproductive Justice Critiques of NRTs & the Rhetoric of “Choice” An Intersectional Analysis of NRTs & Ecological, Feminist, & Reproductive Justice

16. Lingering questions for an ecological, feminist, and environmental justice perspective on reproductive justice • The Mothers. Considering the attachment and affection of birth mothers, gestational mothers, and adoptive mothers for their children, how can we develop an ecological, feminist perspective on the relationship between a mother and her child? • The Children. What do we know for certain about the physical and mental health effects of the NRT practices of egg donation, IVF, and surrogacy on the children these technologies produce? In a society with attachment disorders on the rise, what impact will this medicalized commodification of reproduction have on the children? • The Planet. At a time when world population is soaring, the NRT’s are increasing the elite population in nations responsible for overconsumption. Can elites be persuaded to build family in more ecologically sustainable ways?

17. 2nd & 3rd Wave Feminist Sources • Arms, Suzanne. Immaculate Deception: Myth, Magic, & Birth. (1975; 1994). Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1994. • Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women. New York: Doubleday, 1978. • Our Bodies, Ourselves. http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book Accessed 3/20/2008. • Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 1976. • Ruddick, Sara. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. • Gore, Ariel, and Bee Lavender, eds. Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers. Seattle: Seal Press, 2001. • McConnell, Carolyn. “Juno’s Feminism?” Rock the Cradle, 1/25/2008. http://www.rockthecradleblog.com/2008/01/junos-feminism.html Accessed 3/21/2008.

18. Ecofeminism & Environmental Justice • Brady, Judy, ed. 1 in 3: Women with Cancer Confront an Epidemic. Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1991. • Clorfene-Casten, Liane. Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits and Prevention. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1996. • Colburn, Theo, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers. Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?—A Scientific Detective Story. New York: Penguin/Plume, 1996. http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/index.htm • Steingraber, Sandra. Living Downstream: A Scientist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment (1998). • Steingraber, Sandra. Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood (2003).