Property in the Body

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

This revised and updated second edition takes into account technical and regulatory developments in biotechnology. It offers the reader a clear argument about why we worry about the body becoming a mere commodity and what we can do to prevent it, whilst bringing together bioethics and feminist theory.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.