3.5
Full Surrogacy Now
ByPublisher Description
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 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.
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesFull Surrogacy Now Reviews
3.5
“I read this book as part of a book club, and so I will admit firsthand that this is not a topic I am familiar with at all. This is to say that my lukewarm feelings towards the book might be my own fault, because I did not understand it due to my unfamiliarity with the topic.
I think that Lewis presents some compelling ideas. I appreciated the balance between the theoretical discussions and the case study which helped illustrate why it is so important to use this theoretical lens when looking at the world we live in.
I did not enjoy the actual process of reading the book, even though I found the ideas interesting. This is because I found the wording in the book to be quite clunky at times and overly academic to the point where it neared jargon. Then again, there could a few reasons I struggled that are not Lewis's fault. I did read this as an audiobook because my library was not carrying this book. Like I mentioned, I also do not know anything about surrogacy so she could have been using terms that I am unfamiliar with, but are common for the subject.
One criticism I feel strongly about is the structure of the book, specifically the arrangement of chapters. Some of the chapters were much too long, focusing on multiple ideas, and could have been broken up to better highlight each concept Lewis discussed. The book beginning with long analysis chapters also made the later, shorter chapters feel half baked by comparison.
Despite those criticisms, I have overall positive, if lukewarm, feelings towards this book. The reason for that is that Lewis did what I think is the most important job for any author to accomplish: to make me interested in learning more. I had rarely, if ever, thought about surrogacy before. This book had me thinking about it all the time.
At the time I read this book, I had a discussion with my (male) professor and we were talking about extending human life spans. He mentioned the possibility of a vaccine that could stop telomeres from shortening and suggested that kind of treatment could even be administered to the baby in the womb and I was struck by the idea that someone was considering a future where humans could live forever and still saw gestation as happening inside the human body.
Books like this are necessary to highlight overlooked and forgotten parts of society, regardless of how you feel about the authors' own ideas.”
“This was a mind-blowing book that took me in a variety of directions and investigations into feminist theory because I was thinking about it for weeks after reading. Provocative and lively, as well as being deeper and more imaginative than almost any piece of feminist or social justice writing I've ever read. Rewired my brain in terms of how I think about children's rights and adoption, as well as family as an institution and the practice of surrogacy.”
About Sophie Lewis
Sophie Lewis is a theorist, critic and translator living in Philadelphia. She publishes her work—on topics ranging from dating to Donna Haraway—on both scholarly and non-academic platforms, including Boston Review, Viewpoint, Signs, Science as Culture, Jacobin, the New Inquiry, Mute, and Salvage Quarterly. Her translations include Communism for Kids by Bini Adamczak (with Jacob Blumenfeld), A Brief History of Feminism by Antje Schrupp, and Other and Rule by Sabine Hark and Paula Villa. A feminist committed to cyborg ecology and queer communism, she is a member of the Out of the Woods collective and an Editor at Blind Field: A Journal of Cultural Inquiry.
Other books by Sophie Lewis
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
