The Means Of Reproduction
Investigative journalist Michelle Goldberg joins us at Cafe this week for our latest book club discussion on her new book The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. The subject of the book is the global battle for reproductive rights. But, as Goldberg mentions in her opening post, "Most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I say that, which is in part why I wrote it." This battle includes, but isn't limited to, the decades long legislative and ideological fights over abortion, female circumcision, and women's sexual autonomy.
Joining the discussion are Katha Pollitt, essayist and author of Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time; Helen Epstein, journalist, writer, and author of The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing The Fight Against AIDS in Africa; Deepali Gaur Singh, academic and author of Drugs Production and Trafficking in Afghanistan; Gloria Feldt, women's activist and author of Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles; and Lauren Berlant, Professor of English at the University of Chicago and author of The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture.
Join us.




















Is this all about Sex? Or does it include "In Vitro" as well?
May 4, 2009 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's all about people congratulating each other into publication who bootstrap some vile, inhumane eugenic policies in with some obvious, and no-brainer human rights beefs. They like to raise the most sensational human rights abuses as a way of implying that the same folks who oppose their eugenics policies MUST also support the human rights abuses. The elephant in the closet is that their eugenics policies are themselves horrific human rights abuses.
This culture of abortion is supposedly against abortion and for choice, but they do all in their power to teach the world that sexuality trumps free choice, i.e. impulse over responsibility. It's a cynical world view that doesn't take into account the reality of poor condom compliance, disease vectoring and mutation, the severity of diseases (HPV causing lung cancer for example), and the irresponsibility of certain populations who promote risky practices. Perhaps worst of all it is a world view that presumes young women cannot control themselves in the presence of male sexuality, therefore, they can't be responsible for their choice where elective abortion is used as birth control.
In fact, they trot out a new generation of so-called feminists who take the Panorama City lobby's view of sexuality and run with it. That's just dumb and fraudulent. There's a whole generation of people running around with diseases they got when they thought they were smarter than they actually were. That's youthful arrogance at work, and the writers here a few weeks back were all for making it a new religion.
Look, our culture is not repressed about sex, it is ashamed of what is has allowed to happen to sexuality having surgically removed it from love, romance and commitment (blaming those three for its ruination). Men are chief to blame for the demand for cheap, meaningless sex in part because ours is a society where consequences may be aborted and the party goes on. Strange so many liberals get this with regard to toxic dumping, hydrocarbons and the like, but not regarding interpersonal relations. If they do get it, they don't speak up for it enough. On the other side of the aisle they speak up about it but don't mean it. That's what happens when religion gets politicized.
Venus self-destructs where it doesn't take a back seat to Agape (selfless love of all) and Phileo (friendship love). In other words, these are to work together.
The other party's, or any individual's hypocrisy is not reason to avoid speaking the truth on these matters from the left. The point is, we must work on mending our cultural and social cohesion in these wedge areas.
May 5, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink