Reproductive Technology in Dystopian Times

Although reproductive technologies are often sold as ways for individuals to take control of their future and guard against precarity, the proliferation of the idea of the “tech fix” can strengthen systems that are making our communities less secure in the first place. This essay thus explores the tension between technologies offered to us as individuals to address our problems and the negative consequences of leaning too heavily on technologies to address or mitigate what are, essentially, structural problems. I argue that the way that emerging reproductive technologies are being developed and sold threatens to intensify individualism, break solidarity, and increase the wealth and power of investors. In doing so, this essay reviews existing literature on reproductive technology, focusing on scholarship that offers critical insights for understanding the myriad technological and political changes in human reproduction on the horizon. The essay covers topics including financialization, stratified reproduction, the transnational reproductive bioeconomy, surveillance, and eugenics to highlight how scholarship has uncovered many problems with the idea of the “tech fix” in the realm of reproduction. The essay also calls for more critical examinations of the politics of reproductive technologies and greater integration of disability justice into reproductive technology scholarship.