The Politics of Choice from Reproductive to Morphological Freedom

A piece in Slate today by Liza Mundy nicely surveys some of the perplexities pro-choice politics confronts in the era of genetic medicine. Clearly, choice activists recognize that bio-conservatives can easily exploit ignorance and anxieties about new reproductive technologies to introduce back-door restrictions on our reproductive choices, even though support for Choice is overwhelmingly widespread. But the truth is that many of the supporters of reproductive freedom are ambivalent themselves about the implications of the new era of genetic medicine, and so no real consensus strategies are emerging yet to counter the bio-conservatives. It is clearer by the day that the politics of Choice must change to accommodate new technology and ensure that these developments expand rather than restrict the scope of human freedom.