<i>LA FECONDAZIONE ASSISTITA TRA EGUAGLIANZA E PATRIARCATO</i>

Abstract

I offer a feminist perspective on reproductive technologies according to which the ethical permissibility of such practices does not answer all normative questions; there is a further and possibly more fundamental question that needs to be addressed about the role that such technologies play within our social structures. Here I argue – using the example of IVF-with-ROPA, a recent development that allows lesbian couples to share biological motherhood – that reproductive technologies perpetuate prejudices about the value of biological ties and therefore, far from challenging patriarchal oppression, those practices reinforce the discriminatory status quo.