‘Wrongful’ Inheritance: Race, Disability and Sexuality in Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank

Life’s continuation: repro-tech, biogenetic affinity, and racial capitalism

“…Applying critical legal and critical race studies to the case and engaging its surrounding media, this paper considers what Cramblett can tell us about loss-where loss denotes the fact or process of something being taken away or the deprivation of something of value. While others have also examined this case in terms of loss (e.g., Lenon and Peers 2017;Rich 2020), I am particularly interested in how loss is related to property (an attribute, belonging, or possession-material or immaterial) within an overarching system of racial capitalism. In invoking racial capitalism, I call on Cedric Robinson's understanding that "the development, organization, and expansion of capitalist society pursued essentially racial directions," and that relations under capitalism require and intensify difference and differentiation-particularly the unequal differentiation of human value-in large part along racial lines (1983, p. 2).…”

“…I do not focus on the specifics of disability in relation to the case here. SeeValentine (2020),Kearl (2018), Paul-Emile (2018),Brown (2018),Lenon and Peers (2017).5 Also seeHoughton-Larsen (2019), who looks at payment, and the failure of delivery on payment in relation to ART, across a range of legal cases.…”

Securitizing the Canadian Family Through Transnational Reproductive Governmentality and Citizenship

“…Kiran Fertility Services is uniquely situated as a multinational corporation, catering to potential clients from many countries (in the global South and North) in the broader practice of transnational surrogacy. As businesses with a legal-economic presence in more than one country, the historical emergence of multinational corporations is tied to the networks formed by colonial domination (Tolentino 2001 Lenon and Danielle Peers (2017) postulate as the intersection between race and disability forged by the eugenic and imperial historical system associated with the Western application of assisted reproductive technologies. For these scholars, "the birth of a 'non-white' child to a 'white family' through neo-eugenic reproductive technologies can be understood as such an inconceivable harm, and further, can be pursued through legal action designed to support parental rights to prevent disability, defect and (racial) 'degeneracy'" (Lenon and Peers 2017:14).…”

“…In their conclusion, the authors are clear that the point of their analysis is not that race acts like a disability. However, because of the notable interest that the stakeholders of transnational surrogacy have in producing biologically desirable children, I propose that it is still necessary to emphasize that the way in which race and disability have come to be articulated alongside one another, carving out a space in Westernized society where social and political preferences for all types of undesirable bodies can be legally opposed (Lenon and Peers 2017 2006:39). Within the transnational surrogacy market, doing so is an exercise in applying the capitalist, neo-eugenic, and neosettler-colonial mentalities which allow for the expansion of the global bioeconomy and the exploitation of gendered and racialized bodies in commodified markets (Cooper 2008;Vora 2015 Under 22(2), the intention "to become a permanent resident does not preclude them from becoming a temporary resident if the officer is satisfied that they will leave Canada by the end of the period authorized for their stay (Government of Canada 2014).…”