Gender and Justice in the Gene Age: The Challenges Presented by Reproductive and Genetic Biotechnologies

Abstract

This chapter examines some of the challenges created by the rapid emergence, and in some prosperous nations, unregulated development of new reproductive and genetic biotechnologies and biomedical protocols that use and impact women's reproductive capacity. It also reports on the ova trade in the United States, and attempts at enforceable regulatory oversight of reproductive biotechnologies and egg donation in the US. Lastly, this article considers the social justice challenges posed by some emerging biomedical technologies in the context of distributive justice issues like women's bodily integrity and 'red biotechnologies', intergenerational justice, existing health equity resource sharing, and the longstanding challenge to the women's movement to support reproductive justice for marginalized women.