THE MODE OF REPRODUCTION IN TRANSITION:

Abstract

There is an abundant and growing feminist literature examining the implications of reproductive technologies that separate genetic, physiological, and social motherhood. The literature explains the development of these technologies in terms of the motivations of men (scientists, doctors, lawyers, “pharmacrats,”“technodocs,” etc.), stressing the victimization of women by the medical and legal institutions and the commodification of these technologies. This article examines these technologies from a Marxist-Feminist perspective, locating their sources in the overall development of the forces of production; that is, in structural changes irreducible to their microfoundations. In the process of changing the biological conditions of intergenerational social reproduction, these technologies have established the material basis for the structural separation between the mode of procreation (open to public scrutiny, medical intervention, and state supervision) and the mode of social and physical reproduction (which functions in the privacy of households). These structural changes are generating new identities and forms of consciousness that clash with taken-for-granted ideas about motherhood. These differences are captured in feminist debates about the significance of these technologies.