Chessmistress wrote:http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/10/no-single-men-do-not-have-right-reproduce
Excerpt:
We know we are right in thinking that one cannot challenge patriarchy without fundamentally revising our understanding of family structures. Where we have gone wrong is in assuming that a revision of family structures will, in and of itself, challenge patriarchy. On the contrary, it can accommodate it.
This is why all feminists – and indeed anyone serious about tackling patriarchy at the root – should be deeply concerned about the World Health Organisation’s new definition of infertility. Whereas up until now infertility has been defined solely in medical terms (as the failure to achieve pregnancy after 12 months of unprotected sex), a revised definition will give each individual “a right to reproduce”.
According to Dr David Adamson, one of the authors of the new standards, this new definition “includes the rights of all individuals to have a family, and that includes single men, single women, gay men, gay women”
“It puts a stake in the ground and says an individual’s got a right to reproduce whether or not they have a partner. It’s a big change.”
It sure is. From now on, even single men who want children – but cannot have them solely because they do not have a female partner to impregnate – will be classed as “infertile”. I hope I’m not the only person to see a problem with this.
I am all in favour of different family structures. I’m especially in favour of those that undermine an age-old institution set up to allow men to claim ownership of women’s reproductive labour and offspring.
I am less enthusiastic about preserving a man’s “right” to reproductive labour regardless of whether or not he has a female partner. The safeguarding of such a right marks not so much an end to patriarchy as the introduction of a new, improved, pick ‘n’ mix, no-strings-attached version.
There is nothing in Adamson’s words to suggest he sees a difference between the position of a reproductively healthy single woman and a reproductively healthy single man. Yet the difference seems obvious to me. A woman can impregnate herself using donor sperm; a man must impregnate another human being using his sperm.
In order to exercise his “right” to reproduce, a man requires the cooperation – or failing that, forced labour – of a female person for the duration of nine months. He requires her to take serious health risks, endure permanent physical side-effects and then to supress any bond she may have developed with the growing foetus. A woman requires none of these things from a sperm donor.
This new definition of infertility effectively enshrines a man’s right to do to women what patriarchy has always done to them: appropriate their labour, exploit their bodies and then claim ownership of any resultant human life.
Already it is being suggested that this new definition may lead to a change in UK surrogacy law. And while some may find it reassuring to see Josephine Quintavalle of the conservative pressure group Comment on Reproductive Ethics complaining about the sidelining of “the biological process and significance of natural intercourse between a man and a woman”, that really isn’t the problem here.
Men do not have a fundamental right to use female bodies, neither for reproduction nor for sex. A man who wants children but has no available partner is no more “infertile” than a man who wants sex but has no available partner is “sexually deprived”.
The WHO’s new definition is symptomatic of men’s ongoing refusal to recognise female boundaries. Our bodies are our own, not a resource to be put at men’s disposal. Until all those who claim to be opposed to patriarchal exploitation recognise this, progress towards gender-based equality will be very one-sided indeed.What do you think NSGs?More sources:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/he ... 48750.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10 ... ew-defini/
As rightly stated in the first article, such definition is going to basically give to the men the "right" of exploiting women through the practice of commercial surrogacy!
In order to protect the freedom and the dignity of women, the Council of Europe very recently rejected the so-called "surrogacy guidelines" that were, in fact, a trojan horse conceived by the transexual MP De Sutter in order to grant to the men the privilege to exploit women even more!
http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_715312.aspThe Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), a human rights organisation, has voted to reject a proposal to introduce international guidelines on surrogacy and children's rights.
It voted 83 to 77 against a draft recommendation to create 'European guidelines to safeguard children's rights in relation to surrogacy arrangements', prepared by rapporteur Professor Petra De Sutter, a member of the Flemish Green Party.
The report included proposals to ban 'for-profit' surrogacy as well as recommending that the Council of Ministers work with the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) on private international law issues concerning children born through surrogacy arrangements, including legal parenthood.
Distinct from the European Union, the Council of Europe was set up in 1949 by various European states, including the UK, to promote democracy and human rights. While it has itself no law-making power, it performs an advocacy role and campaigns on rights issues. Its parliament includes MPs from national parliaments across the European Union, Turkey and Russia.
It was not the first time the Council of Europe has declined to draw up guidelines on surrogacy, a topic on which there is divided opinion across Europe. A previous vote against the draft report by the Council of Europe's Social Affairs and Health Committee in March was preceded by a protest rally in Paris against surrogacy.
In the latest draft recommendation, Professor de Sutter said she believed that members of the Committee were 'too divided on the human rights and ethical issues related to surrogacy' and that she did not believe a 'majority exists on whether or not altruistic surrogacy arrangements should be allowed'. As such, the report was updated to relate only to for-profit surrogacy and its impact on children.
Professor de Sutter said that she did not herself believe that altruistic surrogacy arrangements should be prohibited. It had been alleged that her support for certain surrogacy practices and connections to clinics in India represented a conflict of interest but these allegations were dismissed by the Committee in January this year.
Earlier this year, over 100,000 European citizens signed a petition for PACE to vote in support of a ban on surrogacy, while the European Parliament of the EU passed a resolution condemning all forms of surrogacy in December 2015. In Italy, 50 'lesbian and activist women' signed a petition last month against 'the commercialisation of women's bodies', reports The European Post.
Surrogacy remains regulated at a national level across Europe. In the UK, surrogacy is permitted while 'commercial' surrogacy is prohibited by legislation. But some countries, including France and Italy, adopt more restrictive approaches.
Feminists have been accused by the surrogacy lobby of "being against women self-determination", pretending that self-determination would make people immune from liabilities (including political liabilities), including not just only political liabilities against other women but also against the human rights of the children: it's not just only that women and children must not be reduced to objects, it's even that self-determination is real just only if it's free from the needs and the disparity in the balance of power, between those who have wealth and power and those without it.
With surrogacy women become objects enlisted in auction catalogues of brokers, catalogues on which customers can choose according to the physical and mental features of the women (including the sexual tastes and even the level of education) then such customers can set contracts that should make everybody literally cringe for the absolute loss of dignity that such contracts underlies.
Now "thanks" to the corruption within WHO, even after a victory within the Council of Europe, women have to face again this very huge problem, worldwide, and even in Europe, probably the first will be UK, where it's very likely that, even due the Brexit, the practice of surrogacy will be totally allowed, even for purely commercial purposes.
Personally I think that's a shame and that all women should stand against such blatant attack, just like it recently happened in Poland.
I'm not terribly fond of surrogacy but I fail to see why being a single man makes the procuring of such a service worse than when a long time married but infertile couple uses one.
