Debate on reproductive rights

Debate on reproductive rights

By Francesca Davidson

MELBOURNE — About 70 people participated in a September 22 public meeting sponsored by Green Left Weekly on "Reproductive Rights: a question of choice".

Resistance organiser and feminist activist Kylie Budge argued that the technology surrounding IVF programs, contraceptives and abortion methods was not bad or good in itself. The real issue was who controlled the development and use of this technology.

Feminists had to recognise that some women will choose to use IVF and surrogacy as a way of overcoming infertility, she said. Rather than taking a moralistic position on women who do this, we should campaign for more information and support mechanisms for them. Banning these technologies would only further limit women's choices about their lives.

Christine Ewing from the Feminist International Network Resisting Reproductive And Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE) concentrated more on the devastating effects these technologies have had on certain women. FINRRAGE could not support the legalisation of surrogacy because it felt that this would only increase women's exploitation. She said that the question of reproductive rights was not a priority for women in the Third World in the way that clean drinking water, food and shelter were.

Discussion was lively and ranged over the many moral, ethical and political issues associated with surrogacy and IVF as well as some of the strategies needed to tackle this question. It was pointed out that women have known for some time about the often detrimental effects of these technologies and that we had to get past the discussion stage to action. There was a mixed feeling in the audience as to what this action should be, however, especially with regard to surrogacy.

From GLW issue 73