Eve
The Disobedient Future of Birth
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Longlist, 2023 Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Book Awards
A radical interrogation of the ethics and future of birth by an expert legal scholar.
Every single one of us has been born from a person. So far. But that is about to change. For the first time, babies could be gestated and born from machines through “Ex-vivo Uterine Environment Therapy,” aka EVE. But such radical technology leaves us with complex legal, social, and ethical questions. What does this breakthrough in artificial human gestation mean for motherhood, womanhood, and parenthood? Countries and people that do not respect the autonomy of pregnant people may use these technologies to curtail choice further, advance eugenic ideas, or to deepen class and racial divides.
In this fascinating story of modern birth, Claire Horn takes us on a journey from the first orchid-like incubators in the 1880s to the cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs of today. As she explores the most challenging and pertinent questions of our age, Horn reflects on her own pregnancy. Could artificial wombs allow women to redistribute the work of gestating? How do we protect reproductive and abortion rights? And who exactly gets access to this technology, in our vastly unequal world?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Health law scholar Horn debuts with an enlightening study on the ethics of medical reproductive assistance, mainly the incubation of premature babies and in vitro fertilization. Tracing the history of these advancements in science alongside ethical responses to them, she writes that, from their inception, the incubator (invented in the 1880s) and in vitro fertilization (achieved in the 1970s) were surrounded by debate. Horn shows that proponents have consistently been divided between liberatory feminists who seek to limit the physical burden placed on mothers and eugenicists hoping that utopian advancements in childbirth will lead to the elimination of "undesirable traits." In 2017, researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia accomplished the first successful animal trial of a partial artificial womb, sparking a new round of debate about the future of childbirth. While Horn believes the science of birth should continue to be studied, she cautions that the feminist argument in favor of artificial wombs is "positing a technological solution to a social problem," one that casts women's bodies as the problem, when in reality many of the indignities of childbirth stem from insufficient medical care and childcare support for new parents. Horn's wide-ranging survey is a smart synthesis of many strands of politics and history.
