Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family

Written by Sophie Lewis

Narrated by Sophie Lewis

"Where pregnancy is concerned, let every pregnancy be for everyone. Let us overthrow, in short, the family."

The surrogacy industry is estimated to be worth over $1 billion a year, and many of its surrogates around the world work in terrible conditions—deception, wage-stealing and money skimming are rife; adequate medical care is horrifyingly absent; and informed consent is depressingly rare. In Full Surrogacy Now, Sophie Lewis brings a fresh and unique perspective to the topic. Often, we think of surrogacy as the problem, but, Full Surrogacy Now argues, we need more surrogacy, not less! Rather than looking at surrogacy through a legal lens, Lewis argues that the needs and protection of surrogates should be put front and center. Their relationship to the babies they gestate must be rethought, as part of a move to recognize that reproduction is productive work. Only then can we begin to break down our assumptions that children “belong” to those whose genetics they share. Taking collective responsibility for children would radically transform our notions of kinship, helping us to see that it always takes a village to make a baby.

The seriously radical cry for full gestational justice that I long for … unique and bracing.”– Donna Haraway

“Full Surrogacy Now is a landmark text of visionary feminist thinking. This book is as breathtaking as it is necessary.”– Natasha Lennard

“An extraordinary book, as nuanced as it is provocative. I cannot recommend it highly enough.”– Helen Hester

This book goes far into places where few gender abolitionists have ventured and brings us a vision of another life.” – McKenzie Wark

“Sophie Lewis is at the top of a new generation of scholars and activists thinking the transformation of gestational labor within contemporary pharmacopornographic capitalism.– Paul B. Preciado

“Sophie Lewis and her expansive vision of feminism are desperately needed right now.– Melissa Gira Grant

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verso Books
• Release date: Aug 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667044538

Reviews for Full Surrogacy Now

[Cyan Quinn · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

In a fully communist/feminist society, with free birth control and abortion, why have children at all?

This is the one big question that remains unanswered. For the vision of reproduction in the book is one where the mother and father of children are nor expected, even discouraged, to take interest in raising their children. So what motive would a woman have to get pregnant in the first place?

The vast majority of people have children because they want children. They want to raise them and be with them as much as possible. They do so out of a biological desire(hardwired by the most primal evolutionary mechanisms) and out of a need for love(another, just as primal evolutionary mechanism). Studies also show that parents care more for biological children than for adoptive. Unconsciously. Again, biology is at play. It makes more sense to invest more in your own genes than in anothers.

Like anything good thing in life, raising children requires pain and struggle. But people do it anyway because it is worth it. The struggle actually helps to give the experience more meaning, and it makes the good times more joyous. Take away all this, and women will simply not have children. A woman is not going to have a child simply to give it away to a commune.