Birthing is a natural phenomenon. However, in the era of modernisation, it has dramatically changed and transformed into a technological affair. Some feminists claim that advances in medicine and assisted reproductive technologies have opened up numerous opportunities and choices for women to free themselves from their destined role of maternity by separating sex from reproduction. But are these technological artefacts always there to emancipate women or just another way to keep them subordinated to serve social needs? Other feminists argue that (...) technology is a controlling tool. It eliminates a woman’s choice and uses her body as a baby-manufacturing machine to perpetuate pervasive social roles and responsibilities. Again, if technology is simply a patriarchal trap, then can technological exclusion be the key to all reproductive issues? It seems not! Technology is the inevitable new reality of the world influenced by socio-cultural practices, values, norms and belief system that has a strong impact on human existence. The present paper is an attempt to critically explore and evaluate the ethical challenges posed by technicization of motherhood from two opposite feminist perspectives. I argue that these ART-centred debates are significant but polarised and insufficient to resolve maternal problems. Thus, we need an egalitarian model of technology that saves women from the threat of technicization, and be able to provide a dignified use of it. The paper discusses the impact of technicization on maternal self in relation to ARTs and proposes suggestions to overcome this problem. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant, in his political project, “Perpetual Peace” has attempted to show a moral hope for the scourge of humanity, i.e. war. For Kant, man’s intrinsic selfish nature is a cause of constant collision that can be controlled by universal laws of reason to ensure an enduring peace among the warring nations. But is this idealistic approach towards war equally applicable to concrete particular situations of humankind? What if there are conditions under which war becomes inevitable or even a desirable (...) alternative? Can the choice of war be a morally justified alternative? And again, with the choice of war, can we ever hope for perpetual peace? It seems not! There are certain conditions when humanity is put at stake and war turns out to be the ultimate way to find peace Kant hinted but has not explored at length. In this paper, I want to explore and expound on these human conditions by bringing the situational examples of Mahābhārata and its idea of Dharma Yudha (righteous war). Mahābhārata serves as illuminating justifications for irremediable difficulties and dilemmas behind the inescapability of war in certain human circumstances. I will try to understand how far this “realistic” effort is ethically warranted in the way of seeking peace. I argue that although the Kantian universal model of rejection of war is a valuable ideal, and Mahābhārata’s realistic solution in terms of recognition of righteous war is relevant on the practical ground, both these positions of morality and corporality do not seem to provide a sufficient means of achieving perpetual peace in a contingent world, and therefore, it requires to look at some other alternatives. In doing so, an attempt will be made to critically analyse the incessant struggle between universal and particular, or idealism and realism by highlighting the existential contingencies and ambiguities of human finitude in the light of Kant and Mahābhārata in relation with perpetual peace and war. (shrink)

Surrogacy is one of the desired reproductive technologies for family formation, yet surrogate mothers are subjected to unethical treatments and unbalanced power relations in India. Such treatment obscures women’s free decision-making and can be detrimental to their maternal self. Recently, the Surrogacy Act, 2021, has received the President’s approval to regulate surrogacy practices by limiting them for the altruistic motives which have again provoked the burning debates regarding reproductive technologies, women’s emancipation and procreative labour. The paper thus explores women’s agency, (...) maternal freedom and surrogate arrangements in Indian society. The complexity of the implementation of the law, vulnerability of surrogate labour, woman’s bodily autonomy and reproductive choices have been analysed. This has been done through comprehensive feminist discussions on motherhood experience in terms of enforced vs. voluntary to find the way to protect women’s freedom and subjectivity in the task of ‘mothering as empowerment’. (shrink)

Maternity is a biological process that has increasingly changed into an authoritative medicalized phenomenon and requires techno-medical intervention today. Modern medicine perceives women’s procreative functions as pathological that need medical involvement and control. Medical biologists claim that the female body is destined to procreate in which medical sciences can assist them with techniques. But is a woman’s body biologically evolved merely for procreation? Or is it a sexist interpretation of her socially situated self? How can we justify the idea of (...) universality and neutrality of medical sciences in a social context? Arguing against deterministic biology, existential feminists advocate that female body is not merely a biological fact but rather a social situation under which the maternal act has become the essence of being a woman. Social situations influence medicine in a way that they are used as a rhetorical tool to achieve social desires authoritatively. The present paper explores and examines the increasing medicalization of female body and maternity through the lenses of biological determinism and phenomenological existentialism. I argue that medically supported theories of female body are socially interpreted that perpetuate the traditional role of women as mothers instead of emancipating them from their immanence. The paper discusses how the scientific model of medicine is implicitly influenced by socio-cultural forces and, consequently, tries to reduce social phenomena into biological factors to justify women’s inevitable destiny as motherhood. Thus, we need a de-medicalized model of medicine in order to comprehend the true meaning of maternal body and self. (shrink)