(en) France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) Courant Alternatif #247 - To open the debate: Having children, a new law? (fr)

(en) France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) Courant
Alternatif #247 - To open the debate: Having children, a new law?
(fr)[machine translation]

Human reproduction is a central issue that crystallizes all ideologies, at the global 
level. The survival of the species is at stake The book Alexis Escudero (1), which account 
we make here, led a discussion on new technologies proposed in rich developed world to 
promote this reproduction. ---- Artificial Reproduction of the human present essentially 
become a reflection on a topical issue - whose title gives the statement - about the 
future of modern societies and therefore ourselves. The author denounces, often 
sarcastically, both genetic manipulation, the power of expert-es, that propagate 
artificial life, medicalization and commercialization of all aspects of life, the 
atomization of people global capitalism ... and their consequences, both on individual 
freedom and responsibility on the maintenance of capitalist exploitation and patriarchal 
domination. Most criticisms or attacks against him relate to his provocative formulas (2) 
- few but quite striking by their dark humor to have focused attention on them - and his 
personality (Escudero was deemed elitist or pretentious) or its proximity to the PMO group 
(criticized for his anti-industrial obsession).

The best thing is to rely on techno?

Escudero described the process that will lead, he said, with forced generalization of 
assisted reproduction, or PMA, if nothing is done to prevent it. The "deleterious 
lifestyle spread around the world by industrial capitalism: obesity, stress, smoking and 
lack of physical activity," and especially the pollution of our environment make daily 
sperm production is currently falling free in Europe and North America. Faced with these 
ravages, he demonstrates (in a tone a little preachy, but in an efficient process), there 
are two ways of behaving: "We can claim the LDCs and advocate for artificial reproduction 
of the human or fight against industry that sterilizes the population. "He chose the 
second option, asserts there because it is" radical ". It paints a picture of what has 
become a gigantic baby business (3). Poor people in rich countries, but mostly in poor 
countries selling their eggs or sperm to organizations that select them according to 
certain criteria (social origin, physical characteristics, scores on IQ tests, etc. ) in 
order to promote the chances of success of future social-hildren (intelligence, beauty, 
health ...). This material is treated in centers (located in states such as Spain, where 
the law favors) practicing artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, or direct 
injection of sperm into the cytoplasm.

At the same time develops the GPA or surrogacy, the world - especially in India - because 
"the rental of human reproductive material particularly attracted affluent couples in 
Western countries." We soon came to selecting the best embryo to implant in the uterus of 
the mother or surrogate mother: "In the United States and in countries where it is 
allowed, more and more perfectly fertile couples - and rich - now choosing IVF in the only 
goal of PGD[preimplantation diagnosis] and thus ensure their descendants the best genetic 
potential. "From there, says Escudero is the open door to transhumanism, that current 
humanity" must be exceeded, processed, improved "using the tools provided by 
nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and science cognitive "bionic 
implants - bio-technology - artificial intelligence and, of course, breeding embryos. "And 
it also leads to eugenics, which if flourished in the early twentieth century in liberal 
democracies (4), was used by Nazi Germany in an attempt to create a" master race. " This 
consumerist freedom to choose their child "among the shortlisted models, standardized and 
improved by large industrial groups - public, semi-public or private matter" - is 
dangerous, said Escudero: "The selection will be two types of criteria. The first will be 
the adequacy of social norms, economic and aesthetic of capitalism and the entertainment 
industry.

Will be retained to ensure that the embryos healthy products, standards, functional and 
usable on the labor market. Then future parents will exercise their freedom of all 
consumers. The distinction focus on eye color, hair, face shape. It will follow fashions 
and trends. "This is where the author commits a gross error of judgment, citing an excerpt 
from Reflections on a taboo (p. 131): infanticide closet authors in the" so-called 
feminists "and" extremists consumers " . He obviously misunderstood the claim of women in 
the 1970s (although he put forward elsewhere) on the disposal of their bodies, "A child if 
I want when I want," it means that we must have the right to take or not take a child, but 
to choose to have one or not at a given moment in his life (when it is not a problem, a 
galley or disaster, but a " project, "said the excerpt in question). Escudero is not 
interested in the desire for a biological child at any price today expressed; this desire 
questioned us as to we strongly: such a claim both a genetic parentage of a child and 
considered a right - which encourages the use of heavy and expensive techniques, even if 
they are unpleasant and fail to close 85% of cases (22,401 births per 139 344 attempts in 
2010) - is for us a very strange evolution of motherhood control concept (5).

Furthermore, the importance qu'Escudero gives the declining quality of sperm seems (to 
date) in perspective, since the (de) birth depends on many factors (such as the desire for 
a child, but also the state policies ...) and the English or French birth rate is now 
contradicting that of Italy or Germany. Anyway, for us, there is obviously no longer 
necessary to rely blindly in the power of science and medicine (6) that the technocrats 
who govern us in order to serve better their class interests. And this refusal to let them 
decide our lives, and that of the human person in general, developing a lucrative trade 
that would tend to biological standardization of the species does not mean the rejection 
of any progress or desire a flashback to some idyllic natural state (as well as being 
anti-nuclear implies wanting anything in return to the candle).

PMA is the way to achieve equality?

But it is precisely the fundamental criticism carried by Escudero at PMA which earned him 
the controversy being: he refuses as such - on behalf of the dangers to the human 
community as a whole - "and not , he says, for its extension to homosexuals "... at a time 
when a part of the gay community boasts access to it. Bad timing: it launches the alert is 
thereby received by pro-PMA for everyone as a charge against their claim - hence the label 
"homophobic" or "reactionary" Escudero, although nothing in the text makes it possible to 
reach such a conclusion. In truth, rebelling against the practices of selection and babies 
commodification is neither homophobia nor an anti-feminism and the state no-es; however, 
state the evils of LDCs course encourages more to desire to see a limitation of using it 
as its extension to all human beings. "Today reminds Escudero, the PMA is opened or 
refunded to all heterosexual couples, but only to those which one member suffers from 
medically diagnosed infertility.

"The grant" infertile couples of fertile lesbians "would therefore, according to him, 
broadening its scope enabling its generalization to all couples, fertile or not, and even 
individuals. Especially since, "by presenting the LDCs, and wider use of reproductive 
biotechnologies as the sine qua non of equality between gay and straight, LGBT 
associations, and behind them all the liberal left prohibit, by blackmail discrimination, 
any criticism of the artificial reproduction of the human ". For our part, if we say that 
in terms of rights gays should have the same course that straight, we are advocating not 
just to obtain rights in the existing society: we want a radical change in society by 
abolition of exploitation and domination. So we find it difficult to consider the marriage 
generalization (bourgeois institution based on the appropriation of women and the defense 
of private property) or PMA (likely to lead a selection of human beings and falling within 
the framework of market relations) as control axes promoting social emancipation. In view 
of the subversive character that had the claims of homosexual Front of revolutionary 
action (FHAR) in the 1970s, we can only deplore the respectability now sought by some gay 
circles.

The society is the same as the social?

"If they wish to have children in a crowded world the works at this point, said Escudero 
quite sharply, they can always adopt. Give parents of orphans in lifting restrictions on 
adoption procedures, this is a worthy commitment. "But what would be a solution, given the 
rampant world demography, involves fundamentally review the approach in adoption policy, 
particularly in France and the" socialist "government is not moving at all towards it (7 
). The "left" has long since abandoned the fight against economic and social inequality to 
fall back on the societal field added Escudero, and since it is in power she pretends "to 
ignore that (...) support the development of PMA and GPA means supporting trade in eggs 
and sperm, the exploitation of women in the Third World, and, ultimately, the capitalist 
principle that every master sells and buys everything " . And because his supporters are 
"terrified to" play reactionary "or, worse, they are accused of doing so by questioning 
the LDCs, most have swallowed their anti-capitalist ideals - it left - to rally the 
liberal left.

" A fault that they have not finished paying considers Escudero, since it allowed the 
Catholic right to have "now free hand to invade these abandoned territories of criticism." 
This assessment of the "left" seems right, and we consider counterproductive to leave 
generally some topics to the right, either to not "make his game" (it does not need us ... 
) or not to be compared to her-e (we have nothing to do with it - and then it is not 
because the National Front rejected the European Constitutional Treaty that we went es 
vote in favor of this last in the 2005 referendum). If the conflict between social classes 
no longer be restricted to the so-called societal issues while they are far from 
reflecting the existing rift between them, the rulers can sleep soundly.

Being equal is to be the same?

"The progressive anthem that would not opposed social equality and social equality, says 
Escudero". You can have gay marriage AND the minimum wage to 2,000 euros "Bad luck, no one 
has the SMIC 2 000. (...) Once again, the alleged equality at the societal level only 
serves to obscure the social inequalities (...) because the shepherds of the liberal left 
deliberately confuse equality and identity - understood here as a character of what is 
identical. "The equality that formed far the ideological matrix of the left is social, 
economic and political, Escudero added:" It is the idea that individuals, regardless of 
their biological differences, (...) should have the same rights, the same resources and 
the same decision-making powers in the things of the city. "Or" it is this conception of 
equality that the vanguard of the liberal left (...) falsify every day for the benefit of 
biologists, physicians and industry specialized in artificial reproduction. Reducing 
social reality to the binary opposition between dominant and dominated, haunted by the 
idea that any difference is necessarily unequal, they deduce that we can fight against the 
second without abolishing the former. Equality is the identity. Biotechnologies are the 
weapons of this struggle for standardization.

Soon, the depigmentation of black people to fight against racism. "For us too, equality 
has meaning between different people - women in motion in the 1970s were not aimed 
identification men, do not forget, but sought instead to be heard their difference. These 
are not the differences (sex, color ...) in itself problematic, but the ranking 
established from the value they are given, and that results in discrimination, 
devaluation, subordination. We can well agree with a current (called qu'Escudero 
cyberfeminsm or postféminisme) ultraminoritaire even in France, which intends to abolish 
the biological differences between men and women - research on the artificial womb, the 
possibility of child up to no age (as men) ... Escudero strength he related it to his 
painting style SF horror of a future world populated by "cyborgs unisex and monochromatic 
where manipulation, genetic and embryonic selections , bionic implants and converging 
technologies erase differences and standardize the bodies - and minds? "? We hope, because 
the drift to all-pay technology is probably rising inequality: everybody does not benefit 
from the same technological advances, social inequalities would double a biological 
inequality.

Moreover, the reasoning Escudero on the desire of the "left" of "assign the task to 
technology (...) make[all things] the same, in the hope that this leveling will end 
discrimination and to inequalities ", seems partly true: the decline of the" left "on the 
societal field stems from us first what it is liberal and non-socialist (as she herself 
recognizes the increasingly uninhibited ) and also the strong aspiration of its components 
and support for freedom consumerist not political. However, we agree with Escudero on the 
idea that "equality as a democratic value, is never acquired," but is a fight that plays 
in education, the debate of ideas, the perpetual confrontation of individuals and groups 
within society, such as in the organization, establishing rules of life and common decisions.

The natural is necessarily reactionary?

To postféministes and other transhumanists he suspects hating nature and absolutely want 
to leave nothing to chance by formatting all, Escudero opposes nature as the "left" saw 
before: "In the wake of the Enlightenment,[it] had endorsed the idea of a natural order, 
almost divine, must give way to reason, "the ability to judge well, to discern right from 
wrong, good from evil," to organize human society. (...) The left while fighting a 
reactionary thought - in the first sense, that is to say, turned towards the restoration 
of the old regime - which legitimated social inequalities in the name of nature. "Working 
out the" carnal and natural heaviness "amounts in reality to leave the real world; Golden 
says Escudero, it is because nature exists, because everyone-e has links with his own 
body, as lesbians ask to be able to use PMA rather than adopting ... We share with him the 
idea that it is better an imperfect life, because human, a life resulting from selection 
or genetic improvement in its design. "I would feel like an intolerable infringement on my 
freedom of being and acting the idea that someone could consciously manipulate my genome, 
said Escudero, deciding even a fraction of my physical and intellectual characteristics.

Parental expectations weigh heavily on already conceived children and educated in the 
ordinary way. Imagine what they will weigh on genetically programmed children, who have 
been financial and extraordinary narcissistic investment! (...) At least is this life of 
mine; I have a responsibility in what I like in my successful failures. (...) But there is 
no freedom without responsibility. By giving to others, even partially, the determination 
of who I am, eugenics deprives me of the one and the other. "This thinking applies both at 
the individual level as that of generations continues Escudero. Furthermore, eugenics can 
only be "coercion", not "liberal" as no-es seem to think, "When states and the human herd 
managers will have the tools at their disposal, nothing the prevent improve the quality of 
their herd "- for economic purposes as well as environmental (if the individual is 
smaller, its droppings will be lower and therefore pollute less, etc.).

Seen, while in some quarters science seems to have become the ultimate for achieving 
equality when it can only lead to a strengthening of class domination, sex and color, the 
book Escudero worthy of debate, reproductive methods and their commercial development 
without any consultation and unbridled can not remain indifferent es. Even if it is 
approaching an apocalyptic pamphlet and if the anti-industrial theses defended the current 
of thought around PMO must be relativized. For us, as the human remains human, there is 
hope, and resistance may still appear - even where you least expect it (8).

Vanina and Chantal

1. Artificial reproduction of the human, The World Turned Upside Down, 228 p., 7 euros.

2. It is from these formulas (incorporated in whole or in part, distorted or not, on 
websites or leaflets) that the book is released without having been read.

3. In addition to all medical specialists that trade in the "child catalog" gives life, 
there occupations that revolve around: advertising, polling agents, communicators and 
marketers; and this sector is exposed since 2009 Fertility Show, the London Salon of 
medically assisted procreation.

4. In the US, many states imposed the forced sterilization of the mentally ill, alcoholics 
and criminals.

5. Family planning yet always been to have as few children as possible because the 
"generous" nature puts us, the women, ability to give birth to fourteen times.

6. Note that the author supports his nightmare scenario of widespread artificial 
reproduction on the scientific capabilities considering an unlimited development of their 
fantasies, as if their word was law. "Experts" had previously also been consulted es to 
technological advances in contraception, or partial changes in the abortion law - and 
their denials predictions.

7. The Minister Vallaud-Belkacem rather defends the opening of the LDCs lesbians couples.

8. Recent scandals in Thailand have had such a global impact that Parliament voted late 
November 2014 prohibiting the GPA. Among others the story of the surrogate mother, 
expecting twins, one of which was revealed Down syndrome in the seventh month of her 
pregnancy, was request a refund by future Australian parents and abortion she refused to 
do; Moreover, once the said parents have recovered the other baby, the press revealed that 
the new father had previously been jailed for pedophilia.


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