A color-enhanced scanning
electron micrograph of a human egg
and Adolph Hitler. Don't get the
connection? Neither does Apple.
Apple's Frozen
Eggs: 'Eugenics' by Any Other Name (News, Switzerland)
"The
rhetoric calls to mind the debates about 'scientific progress' in the 1930s.
Any woman would reject state-sponsored eugenics - God forbid! On the other
hand, eugenics practiced by the private sector - yeah! Freezing eggs is a
highly political and economic policy decision that affects all people. Or would
you - in retrospect - characterize the Nazi race laws as an exclusively private
sector issue in line with the era's understanding of biology, medicine,
corporate law and sociology? Anyone who still dares treat medical reproductive
technology as an 'ethical' or 'moral' issue should be reminded of the Nuremberg
Code used to prosecute members of the German medical community."
Apple and Facebook are leading the way: They are paying
female employees up to $20,000 to freeze their eggs. This is logical and
consistent. The female body is a priceless commodity.
The only inconsistency is that for Apple and Facebook, freezing
nerd sperm - for the biological clock in men is also ticking - is apparently not
worth $20,000. The offspring of a 50-year-old sperm donor exhibits an equally
high number of qualitative deficits as that of a 50-year-old egg donor. That isn't
discussed for sexist reasons that biologists often like to pass off as science (see
the "slip"
of the tongue of atheist-god Richard
Dawkins). If one were to make an issue of it, men would perhaps notice,
unlike career conscious women, that in contrast to the World War period when
they were supposed to “produce” material machines for the public sphere of the
fatherland - now they are “merely” human raw material for private industry.
But back to people with female genitalia - to use the jargon
of Facebook and Apple. Women are corpus delicti. Head first, womb
later. Welcome to a rather medieval body politic! These must now be put to use as efficiently as possible by the private sector. Historically, body politics led
to millions of women being burned at the stake. In modern times it was enough
to put them in corsets. Today these corsets are implanted in the brain so women
themselves think it “normal” to share even their most intimate bodily functions
with their employer. This is now elegantly done by, on the one hand, reducing
women to providers of raw material (frozen oocytes),
and on the other, by harnessing their productive potential.
For centuries, the female body was a battlefield for prevailing
ideologies. In the postmodern feminine discourse on shaving pubic hair, whorish fingernails and fantasies of 50 Shades of Grey - as well
as the depoliticized gender bath of university mental masturbation, that has
been completely forgotten.
Our beautiful new world is in fact really nifty for
feminists. Because let's be honest: While in the past we had to cripple,
imprison, cover up, and burn the female body in order to achieve the desired
“civilizing” effect, today we can earn millions off of it. Anyone who still thinks
progress should be viewed with a critical eye is a moralizing old biddy stuck in
the past!
The decision by Apple and Facebook literally installs the jargon,
way of life and thinking of the delocalized frequent flyer élite, “Googlearians” and tax-exempt casino capitalists into the female
body. However, that's not what matters to feminist commentators. Euphorically
they write, “One thousand five hundred babies have been born since egg freezing
began, and with no conspicuous abnormalities.” Striking here is the lack of
thought given to the socio-political impact of the industrial manufacturing of people.
Andrea Blücher, professor of corporate
law and Barbara
Bleisch, host of Sternstunde [Auspicious Philosophy], only recently
came forward with an impassioned plea for the human free market. They compared
the “use” of dancers with that of surrogate mothers. They defended themselves
against the “emotional” debate on artificial insemination, as if the freezing
of eggs, surrogacy, and the industrial exploitation of mammalian cells were a
moral rather than an economic and political issue. Blücher
and Bleisch compared the trade in babies with ordinary
organ donation.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Particularly insidious about this discussion of “new capital
investment” is that reproductive medicine is sold as progress - and as feminist
- and furthermore, as a “question of private morality.” The rhetoric calls to
mind the debates on “scientific progress” in the 1930s, after which real “success”
only emerged in the 21st century. Any woman would reject state-sponsored
eugenics - God forbid! On the other hand, eugenics practiced by the private
sector - yeah! That is why female professors of corporate law or the private
sector are often those who form the ideological and scientific avant-garde of
the industrial exploitation of human flesh. Under the guise of emancipation and
self-emancipation, many self-proclaimed feminists are the goose-stepping
vanguard when it comes to determining female reproductive rights.
Young women and girls are a valuable raw material. First the
egg, then the capital: For Apple to freeze the egg isn't a moral question. Nor
is it a question of promoting women, of quotas, or even of emancipation. Freezing
eggs is a highly political and economic policy decision that affects all people.
Or would you - in retrospect - characterize the Nazi race laws as an
exclusively private sector issue in line with the era's understanding of
biology, medicine, corporate law and sociology? Anyone who still dares treat
medical reproductive technology as an “ethical” or “moral” issue should be
reminded
of the Nuremberg
Code used to prosecute members of the German medical community. A merely
business oriented approach to issues as important as the freezing of human eggs
and its defense by science leads directly to political, economic, and civil laws
that legitimize (in)human reproduction and a contempt for and destruction of human
life. Who knows: perhaps even those successful individuals, who so indignantly
deny any political responsibility for themselves when it come to such important
issues, will at some point face a tribunal … if all hope isn't frozen along with the oocytes.
