The Dispositive of Life: Zygotes, Embyos and Fetuses in Reproductive Politics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12795/anduli.2020.i19.02Keywords:
life, reproduction, biopolitics, dispositive, fetus, abortionAbstract
Questions about what is life, when it begins, and when it must be protected are central to the debates about abortion, contraceptive methods, assisted reproduction techniques, and other related issues. The objective of this paper is to examine the technoscientific developments that have led to these questions, and to consider the cultural impacts of these debates. To address this, secondary sources were used to create a compilation of specialized literature. The development of intrauterine visualization technologies and genetic narratives, which have become part of popular culture, were analyzed as visualization and enunciation regimes that are part of a complex "dispositive of life". By recovering this Foucaultian concept, this article characterizes the ways in which images and narratives about zygotes, embryos and fetuses, represented as synonyms of "life", circulate freely forming a network of knowledge/power that modulates bodies and subjectivities. It is concluded that the concept of “life”, as we understand it today, isa construction developed throughout the twentieth century, nourished by elements of technoscience, but reproduced in circuits that transcend those fields.Downloads
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