In The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery Alys Eve Weinbaum investigates the continuing resonances of Atlantic slavery in the cultures and politics of human reproduction that characterize contemporary biocapitalism. As a form of racial capitalism that relies on the commodification of the human reproductive body, biocapitalism is dependent upon what Weinbaum calls the slave episteme—the racial logic that drove four centuries of slave breeding in the Americas and Caribbean. Weinbaum outlines how the slave episteme shapes the practice of reproduction today, especially through use of biotechnology and surrogacy. Engaging with a broad set of texts, from Toni Morrison's Beloved and Octavia Butler's dystopian speculative fiction to black Marxism, histories of slavery, and legal cases involving surrogacy, Weinbaum shows how black feminist contributions from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s constitute a powerful philosophy of history—one that provides the means through which to understand how reproductive slavery haunts the present.

The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion and Surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism uniquely brings together three sites of reproduction and reproductive politics to demonstrate their entanglement in creating or restricting options for family-making. The original essays in this collection—which draw from a wide range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives—are attentive to neoliberalism’s reshaping of economies and intimacies to better understand the politics of reproduction. By looking at particular instances (surrogacy in Mexico, forced sterilization in Peru, and racialized biopolitics in post-Katrina Mississippi, among other sites), The Politics of Reproduction focuses on the effects of a radically altered economic landscape on individual choice-making. As a whole, the volume critically engages the question of choice to better understand the costs of a political and ideological climate that encourages, even demands, individual solutions to intractable social problems. Whose choices are amplified in the use of new biomedical technologies and assisted reproduction? Why and how are we discouraged from understanding the economic motivations behind the “choice” to surrender a baby for adoption or to become a surrogate or to seek an abortion? Attentive to the historical, cultural, and ideological conjunctures of reproductive politics, The Politics of Reproduction makes a distinctive contribution to feminist analyses of the specific challenges posed by neoliberalism to reproductive possibilities, politics, and justice in the contemporary moment.

Developments in new reproductive technologies have confounded public policy and created legal and ethical quandaries for professionals and ordinary citizens alike. Drawing from the most current medical, psychiatric, legal, and bioethical literature, Ruth Macklin, noted author and philosopher, presents the arguments surrounding these advances through the voices of fictional characters. The episodes she narrates are based on real-life situations, both from her personal experience as a hospital ethicist and from the public arena, where such controversial court cases as that of Baby M have sparked a multitude of disparate opinions on surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and egg and sperm donor program.

Macklin's hypoethical tale centers on Bonnie and Larry, an infertile couple longing for a child. As the couple's quest to become parents begins, they discover that Bonnie is physically incapable of carrying a pregnancy to term. Desperate to explore their options, Bonnie and Larry attempt adoption but are rejected by the agency without explanation. Finally, they contemplate surrogacy as their last chance to have a child. Seeking advice and answers, they consult health professionals, lawyers, pastoral counselors, and a bioethicist. In the course of this complicated and often painful decision-making process, they attend meetings of a government task force on reproduction where they hear both radical and liberal feminist positions.

Their experiences with friends, family members, two surrogates, hospital ethics committees, and special interest groups underscore the difficulty of coming to a consensus on such issues as AIDS, the right to privacy, premenstrual syndrome, the violation of surrogate contracts, and the responsibilities of therapists and physicians to their patients and to the community at large.