Property in the Body
Feminist Perspectives

Commodification of the human body is gaining ground, strengthened by powerful interests. This book helps us understand and regulate it.

Donna Dickenson (Author)

9781107160774, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 June 2017

222 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.43 kg

'Any new work from the eminent British scholar Donna Dickenson promises to bring important insights. This second edition of her important 2007 volume on the commodification of women's bodies, Property in the Body, is no exception.' Gina Maranto, Biopolitical Times

We live in an era when all bodies are potentially 'feminised' by being rendered 'open-access' for biomedical research and clinical practice. Adopting a theoretically sophisticated and practical approach, Property in the Body: Feminist Perspectives rejects the notion that the sale of bodily tissue enhances the freedom of the individual through an increase in moral agency. Combining feminist theory and bioethics, it also addresses the omissions which are inherent in policy analysis and academic debate. For example, whilst women's tissue is particularly central to new biotechnologies, the requirement for female labour is largely ignored in subsequent evaluation. In its fully revised second edition, this book also considers how policies and developments vary between countries and within specific areas of biomedicine itself. Most importantly, it analyses the new and emerging technologies of this field whilst returning to the core questions and fears which are inextricably linked to the commercialisation of the body.

1. Do we all have feminised bodies now?
2. Commodification, contract and labour
3. The lady vanishes: eggs for reproduction and research
4. Surrogacy: can babies be property?
5. Umbilical cord blood: seizing surplus value
6. Biobanks and databases: our bodies, but not ourselves
7. The gender politics of genetic patenting
8. Reclaiming the biomedical commons.

Subject Areas: Medical & healthcare law [LNTM]