Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #118718

Marsha Darling, PhD, Adelphi University, 217 Harvey Hall, Garden City, NY 11530, 516-877-4981, darling@adelphi.edu, Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, Center for Genetics and Society, 436 14th Street Suite 1302, Oakland, CA 94612, and Judy Norsigian, DHL, Executive Director, Our Bodies, Ourselves (formerly Boston Women's Health Collective), 34 Plympton Street, Boston, MA 02118.

The presentation will focus on feminist and grassroots efforts to identify the power and distortion of the medicalization of health related issues, to counter the privatization and commercialization of genetic and reproductive technologies, and mainstream and grassroots feminist efforts to cope with the extreme polarization of this issue in the US; summarize the contemporary lessons that derive from the legacy of the intersection of state mandated eugenics and population control, and feminist critiques of the medical and commercial appropriation of the procreative capacity of the female body; summarize controversial aspects of assisted reproductive technologies in the international context of globalization and the existing inadequate regulation of the uses of new techniques, and the conflicts in commercial surrogacy and egg harvesting; summarize disability issues in the context of assisted reproductive technologies; summarize the implications of seeking species altering genetic applications; and focus on the issues that emerge in debates regarding tension between individual choice and social justice, responsible regulation and reproductive freedom, and scientific progress and commercial enclosure of the human genome, and the protection of women's health and safety.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the presentation, the attendee will be able to (
• discuss the implications of evolving genetic technologies on women's health and women's rights and (
• identify key strategies for ensuring social justice and preserving rights for women in the new age of reproductive and genetic technologies.

Keywords: Women, Genetics

Related Web page: www.genetics-and-society.org, ourbodiesourselves.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation