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Abstract #157800

Reena E. Singh, MPA and Lois Uttley, MPP. MergerWatch Project, PO Box 540, JAF Station, New York, NY 10016, 212-261-4415, RSingh@mergerwatch.org

As assisted reproductive and genetic technologies become more widely available, women's health advocates have begun to raise questions about potential threats to the health and safety of women using these technologies. Unfortunately, when reproductive justice advocates do this, we sometimes appear to be on the same anti-biotechnology “side” as leaders of the Religious Right, who actually come from a very different “pro-life” position that seeks to grant “personhood” rights to the embryo.

Moreover, some conservative anti-choice organizations are cloaking their questioning of these new technologies in language more often associated with women's rights and social justice. For example, the ultraconservative Concerned Women for America organization states that it opposes biotechnology because it “is the most vulnerable — women and children — who will be used to benefit the powerful, the wealthy, the more politically connected.”

This presentation will discuss the challenges facing reproductive justice advocates in effectively questioning new biotechnologies without inadvertently lending support to anti-choice conservative religious organizations. The presentation will draw distinctions between women's health/social justice concerns and the anti-choice religious concerns articulated to date about such issues as embryonic stem cell research, egg donation, preimplantation genetic diagnosis and sex selective abortion. The presenter will conclude by providing examples of analysis, messages, framing and tactics that some progressive organizations are using to successfully raise concerns about women's health while maintaining distance from the anti-technology campaign of the Religious Right.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify women’s health and social justice concerns about emerging reproductive and genetic technologies in the United States.
• Identify the arguments that religious conservatives use to oppose these technologies, including elevating the status of the embryo.
• Discuss and analyze methods that women’s health and social justice advocates can use to raise questions about these technologies without inadvertently appearing to be aligned with the Religious Right.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.