Mapping feminist discourse from resistance to regulation : women and the politics of the new reproductive and genetic technologies in Canada
Date
1996
Authors
Saulnier, Christine
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Abstract
This thesis examines how a dominant liberal discourse dominated and constrained the feminist discourse on New Reproductive and Genetic Technologies (NRGTs). This dominant discourse allowed the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies to name the problems, the parameters of the debate and thus the solutions. During the Commission's public participation program 1991-92, many Canadian women's groups attempted to position themselves within a feminist discourse on NRGTs and present their policy proposals to the Commission. Some women's groups accepted the dominant liberal discourse, some were critical of it and some resisted it. Their proposals ranged from advocating for the regulation of the abusive applications of NRGTs, to requesting a moratorium and eventually regulation of some of the technologies, to seeking a ban on all NRGTs. I examine how the issue of NRGTs "tests" the Canadian reproductive rights movement's ability to enhance diversity and create alternative visions of women's relations to reproduction.
From my reading of the feminist literature on NRGTs and the women's groups' presentations emerged three feminist positions: liberal rights, pluralist choice and social relations. The concepts, theories and ideas, which make-up the feminist discourse, characterize and differentiate these positions. A map of the feminist discourse on NRGTs places the positions onto a continuum and allows me to demonstrate the divisions and distinctions between these positions. The social relations position offers critiques of both the liberal rights and pluralist choice positions and their relation to the dominant liberal discourse and its embedded assumptions. It is a defensive strategy against NRGTs which are indistinguishable from their eugenic possibilities. This position underlines the importance for women as a social group to critically assess the idea that these technologies can make things better for individuals and that social change can make things worse and impinge on individual freedoms. This thesis argues that it is important to open the NRGTs discourse (as the social relations position has) to enable the women's movement to develop strategies which go beyond the dominant individual "rights" and "choice" discourse.