{"id":1032,"date":"2023-04-11T19:47:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T23:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/?page_id=1032"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:10:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:10:33","slug":"wombs-for-rent-or-bodily-autonomy-feminist-ambivalence-towards-assisted-reproduction-in-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/in-print\/volume-xxiv-issue-1-fall-2022\/wombs-for-rent-or-bodily-autonomy-feminist-ambivalence-towards-assisted-reproduction-in-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Wombs for Rent&#8221; or Bodily Autonomy? Feminist Ambivalence Towards Assisted Reproduction in the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Assisted reproduction has become increasingly widespread in the United\u00a0 States, with 73,602 children born using assisted reproductive technologies\u00a0 (ART) in 2020 alone. Yet, as of late, ART has not fostered much mainstream\u00a0 feminist action or extensive contemporary discourse within feminist legal\u00a0 theory. This raises the questions that motivate this Note: <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What has led to femi<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nist ambivalence toward assisted reproduction? Is assisted reproduction a feminist issue?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This Note argues that the past decade is marked by a feminist ambivalence\u00a0 toward assisted reproduction. First, this Note suggests that this ambivalence is\u00a0 apparent in the lack of specifcally feminist legal theory on assisted reproduc tion. This Note provides an overview of writing by Dorothy Roberts, Douglas\u00a0 NeJaime, and Courtney Joslin, who it argues have written the most infuential\u00a0 contemporary scholarship on assisted reproduction. Next, this Note theorizes\u00a0 that assisted reproduction has never become a mainstream feminist issue\u00a0 because it has (1) historically divided feminists; (2) pitted feminists against\u00a0 LGBTQ<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00fe <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">activists; and (3) because feminist attention has not proven to be nec<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">essary for, and in fact may attract controversy towards, the passage of permis sive-ART legislation. Finally, bolstered by a synthesis of ideas from Roberts,\u00a0 NeJaime, and Joslin, this Note argues that ART is a feminist issue, and should\u00a0 be considered as such because assisted reproduction is (1) deeply intertwined\u00a0 with reproductive justice; (2) requires a feminist perspective to ensure ART\u00a0 legislation does not interfere with individuals\u2019 right to bodily autonomy; and\u00a0 (3) because ART has the feminist potential to reframe reproductive labor and\u00a0 family structures.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2023\/04\/Wombs-for-Rent-or-Bodily-Autonomy_-Feminist-Ambivalence-Towards-Assisted-Reproduction-in-the-21st-Century.pdf\">Keep Reading &#8220;Wombs for Rent&#8221; or Bodily Autonomy? Feminist Ambivalence Towards Assisted Reproduction in the 21st Century<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assisted reproduction has become increasingly widespread in the United\u00a0 States, with 73,602 children born using assisted reproductive technologies\u00a0 (ART) in 2020 alone. Yet, as of late, ART has not fostered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8524,"featured_media":0,"parent":1020,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1032","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1783,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1032\/revisions\/1783"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}