This paper intervenes in the bioethical and feminist debate around artificial reproductive technology. Despite having significant individual differences, one thing is common to people of this planet- they have all been a part of the gestating body so far. However, with the Artificial Womb, this reality is going to change. Firestone regarded pregnancy as barbaric and a temporary deformation for the needs of the species. She envisioned the uprooting of reproductive oppression by outsourcing gestation to technological invention. Marge Piercy’s Women on the Edge of Time imagines a feminist utopia where gestation has been disembodied with equal access to pregnancy between genders. This is the cyborgian future that Haraway asks feminists to code to celebrate the postmodern breakdown of a hegemonic identity category of womb politics and women’s embodiment and pregnancy. Yet, adopting the theoretical premise of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man, technology becomes an extension of social control and domination. Feminists are torn in their stance on new reproductive technologies, especially their way of usurping women from the monopoly of gestation. To what extent would artificial wombs and the prospect of complete ectogenesis be liberating within the neoliberal regime, where technologies are used to further the advancement of a profit-generating economy? The rise of this techno-culture must be critically examined. This paper presents an intervention to explore whether the Artificial Womb can be used to empower bodies to transcend the subservient role imposed by the biological demands of reproduction, or if it risks giving total control to a machine-driven future.

Authors:
Labanya Dey, Indian Institute of Technology, India
Smita Jha, Indian Institute of Technology, India

About the Presenter(s)
Labanya is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. She has a keen interest in Sanskrit literature and Indian philosophy, especially Advaita Vedanta.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/labanya-d-917762136/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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