The Warnock report: The politics of reproductive technology

Abstract

The Warnock Report (the report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology, requested by the government of Great Britain) is a crucial text in the discourse on reproductive technologies. This paper is an investigation of the Report to find out exactly what is being said about women's bodies. I explore the relationship between the state and science, between ideology and technology, and the attempt of the Warnock Inquiry to construct a meaning of technology practice. After a brief introduction, the scope of the report is considred in part I. Part II discusses the Inquiry's treatment of infertility and the family. It includes sections on artificial insemination, invitro fertilisation, egg donation and surrogacy. The analysis reveals the Inquiry's preoccupation with the meaning of motherhood and social control of breeding. Women as women are not a presence in the discourse. Part III covers the Report's consideration of scientific research. I show that genetics is an inextricable part of research associated with artificial reproduction and that there exists an undercurrent eugenic meaning of genetics in the discourse on reproductive technology. An epilogue ties together the main points of my analysis. In short, what the text of the Report revealed was that the state and science require that women's bodies be available to serve the patriarchal nuclear family and the needs of scientists. The state empowers science because politicized technologies can be utilized by the state to intervene in population control. This is the logic behind eugenics and the policing of women's sexuality via reproductive technologies.