The Commodification of Women
Feminism often treats women not as individual beings but commodities, using them to create products and services for society.
Modern feminism claims to champion female independence and liberation. And yet, this school of feminism often treats women not as individual beings but commodities, using them to create products and services for society. Whether through abortion, surrogacy or egg donation and IVF, women’s bodies are being used as reproductive vessels to society. Why is this seen as ethical? “Choice feminism” is to blame, having successfully convinced an entire generation of vulnerable and broken women that their bodies can be products to be rented and sold for the pleasure and convenience of others, as long as they give a watered-down consent.
Behind every woman that seeks an abortion is a multi-billion dollar industry, ready to exploit every vulnerable mother for profit. Planned Parenthood, the largest single provider of abortions and contraceptives in America, has an annual revenue of over two billion dollars. While it is true that the healthcare provider provides services other than abortion, it remains a primary pillar of its economic prosperity. Studies show that the main reason that women seek abortions is financial needs. And yet, while crisis pregnancy centers offer financial aid, baby supplies and pregnancy-long support, the only “choice” that Planned Parenthood fully supports and accompanies is the choice to end your child’s life- it’s ironic, but nothing better is to be expected from such a profit-hungry industry.
The story of Tommy Kearns and his daughter, Clementine, proves the oppression of the abortion industry. His partner sought out an abortion at the Cherry Hill Women’s Center in New Jersey, while she was confused and distressed about her unexpected pregnancy. The center rushed the abortion and convinced Clementine’s mother to sign over her body to the clinic. Clementine was aborted at 5 months gestation, possibly while she was still alive, and her body parts were donated to fetal research and harvested. Over a year later, Tommy Kearns is still searching for his daughter’s body and trying to heal from his devastating loss. Fortunately, they have received overwhelming support from the pro-life movement, who is right at their side in this battle of searching for justice for their daughter.
The abortion industry in the United States unfortunately makes many additional victims, targeting in particular minorities, the poor and the disabled. Not only are vulnerable women being exploited for profit, but their children are seen as disposable. While pro-choicers proudly claim to support "healthcare", the actual message is quite clear motherhood is not a blessing, but a disease that needs to be fixed. Minorities, the poor and the disabled are not fragile communities that need to be supported and uplifted, but rather “human weeds” (as Planned Parenthood's founder Margaret Sanger described them) that need to be exterminated from society. The vulnerability of women is used to control society, or rather who lives among it, making abortion one of the most exploitative and eugenic industries currently active.
Surrogacy has similar ethical questions as abortion, but exploits women and children in a different way. The United States is one of the most popular international surrogacy destinations, though other destinations include Ukraine, Mexico, India and other less Westernized countries. Surrogacy, with prices ranging from $30,000-50,000 per pregnancy in the USA, is extremely attractive to women living paycheck to paycheck and poor women from marginalized countries are even more attractive to couples seeking a surrogate... The market price for the womb of a woman from Mexico is far less than for a woman from America. Interestingly, women from poorer and “less developed” countries are easier to buy and I wonder how this has not raised any ethical concerns before.
Once the embryo is implemented in the surrogate woman, she will be forced to avoid any maternal connection with the child growing in her womb and at birth, after hours of painful labor, she will hand over the child to strangers without hesitation. Surrogacy steals motherhood from women. The blessing of pregnancy is reduced to a vessel to sell products. Often, there is a contract involved, which forces the woman to abort the baby if it has any disabilities or defects... Products which don’t conform to manufacturing expectations are destroyed, a concept straight out of a dystopian movie.
Egg donation is becoming increasingly popular amongst young women as well, marketed online as “donate your eggs, pay off your debt”. They are recruited through promises of quick, easy cash, thinking they are selling simple cells but in reality, they are selling their genetic identity and their fertility. Agencies advertise payments of $5,000-50,000 for egg donations, especially for women with desirable traits- Ivy League Students, certain physical traits, ethnicity, intelligence… Like choosing a pair of new winter shoes, it will allow couples to choose the biological mother of their child out of a catalog. This creates a marketplace for women’s bodies, the price depending on genetic desirability. The agencies hunt down young, impressionable girls with financial instability, placing a price on the value of their fertility.
IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) takes it a step further. An embryo is created in a laboratory and then implanted into the uterus. It almost always creates more embryos than are implanted. What becomes of the rest of them? “Excess” embryos are frozen indefinitely, discarded or used for research, treating human life as disposable. Couples may also use PGD (Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis) to select their embryo based on sex, health or other traits, involving eugenics. A male embryo is implanted in the womb, while a female one is discarded down the toilet; The children involved in the IVF process are treated not as humans, but as prototypes.
While stories of people who are unable to conceive naturally are extremely unfortunate, we as adults do not have a right to children. Being a parent is a privilege and should in no way be obtained in ways that cause harm- children are not commodities, women that carry children are not commodities.
