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steve_brinson's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
alecss's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
better as an insight into the commercial surrogacy industry rather than an argument for the abolition of the nuclear family
emmuhhs's review against another edition
4.0
This was one of the hardest books I've ever read. While the content was radical and extraordinary and thought-provoking (and has completely changed my own personal considerations regarding whether or not I would like to have my own child or not), the writing style was excessively convoluted. I believe the content of this book is important and compelling and should be widely examined and discussed, however I am sad to acknowledge that the language itself renders it completely inaccessible to most readers, thinkers, and people in general who may be interested in this topic.
amelia36's review against another edition
this book wasn’t for me and that is ok! i like Sophie Lewis, I think she is a really engaging speaker and I appreciate her commitment to bringing back round discussion about The Family. I was looking for a nonfiction book about surrogacy that introduced the topic and laid out the critical arguments against and ‘in defence’ of the industry, something like Revolting Prostitutes by Juno Mac. I realised early on this is definitely not that book!
the book is made up of loosely tied together chapters— it kicks off looking at pregnancy and numerous risks to ‘birth givers’ due to gestating, giving birth and raising children eg risk of death, post partum depression and raising children with no support from the state. there’s a potted history of white feminists interactions with women in the global south. there’s a long analysis of the handmaids tale, both the book and HBO series. linked to this is criticism of liberal feminists utilisation of the handmaids tale in protesting against antiabortion legislation. it seems to take a while to get into the meat of the book — surrogacy — in terms of her position I think it’s summarised here:
“Unlike most legal scholars and activists in the Stop Surrogacy Now campaign, I am interested neither in defending against disruptions to the prevailing mode of reproduction per se, nor in applauding Surrogacy™ simply on the grounds that it is a disruption.”
“Full surrogacy now,” “another surrogacy is possible”: to the extent that these interchangeable sentiments imply a revolutionary program (as I’d like them to) I’d propose it be animated by the following invitations. Let’s bring about the conditions of possibility for open-source, fully collaborative gestation. Let’s prefigure a way of manufacturing one another noncompetitively. Let’s hold one another hospitably, explode notions of hereditary parentage, and multiply real, loving solidarities. Let us build a care commune based on comradeship, a world sustained by kith and kind more than by kin. Where pregnancy is concerned, let every pregnancy be for everyone. Let us overthrow, in short, the “family.”
I think it’s clear that Lewis envisions a future of surrogacy workers being considered workers in the same way those who sell sex are now understood as sex workers — (“Surrogacy bans uproot, isolate, and criminalize gestational workers, driving them underground and often into foreign lands, where they risk prosecution alongside their bosses and brokers, far away from their support networks”). Despite asserting at a couple of points that surrogacy workers want themselves to be considered as workers (and understandably want all the rights that come along with that) there is very little interaction with people doing surrogacy in this book or a proper exploration of their opinions which I found disappointing.
in terms of where I stood on this book and Lewis argument I still have a lot of questions and comments that i won’t really go into because 1. I cba typing it all out and 2. I struggled with this one a lot and there’s probably a high chance I’ve misinterpreted what Lewis has said.
in terms of prose this is an very dense text that only gets more dense and complex as you go on. my perception of Lewis is of a hyper-academic, very-divorced-from-reality (sorry!!) sort of utopian commentator and that makes me a little bit weary of the stuff she says. even if it’s reasonable and good, when you don’t communicate stuff in a normal, penetrable way then its easy to feel like this sort of ideas and arguments only belong to and can be discussed by certain types of people.
it’s a shame because I think this is an important topic. nonetheless I will have a go at the next book she is writing!
the book is made up of loosely tied together chapters— it kicks off looking at pregnancy and numerous risks to ‘birth givers’ due to gestating, giving birth and raising children eg risk of death, post partum depression and raising children with no support from the state. there’s a potted history of white feminists interactions with women in the global south. there’s a long analysis of the handmaids tale, both the book and HBO series. linked to this is criticism of liberal feminists utilisation of the handmaids tale in protesting against antiabortion legislation. it seems to take a while to get into the meat of the book — surrogacy — in terms of her position I think it’s summarised here:
“Unlike most legal scholars and activists in the Stop Surrogacy Now campaign, I am interested neither in defending against disruptions to the prevailing mode of reproduction per se, nor in applauding Surrogacy™ simply on the grounds that it is a disruption.”
“Full surrogacy now,” “another surrogacy is possible”: to the extent that these interchangeable sentiments imply a revolutionary program (as I’d like them to) I’d propose it be animated by the following invitations. Let’s bring about the conditions of possibility for open-source, fully collaborative gestation. Let’s prefigure a way of manufacturing one another noncompetitively. Let’s hold one another hospitably, explode notions of hereditary parentage, and multiply real, loving solidarities. Let us build a care commune based on comradeship, a world sustained by kith and kind more than by kin. Where pregnancy is concerned, let every pregnancy be for everyone. Let us overthrow, in short, the “family.”
I think it’s clear that Lewis envisions a future of surrogacy workers being considered workers in the same way those who sell sex are now understood as sex workers — (“Surrogacy bans uproot, isolate, and criminalize gestational workers, driving them underground and often into foreign lands, where they risk prosecution alongside their bosses and brokers, far away from their support networks”). Despite asserting at a couple of points that surrogacy workers want themselves to be considered as workers (and understandably want all the rights that come along with that) there is very little interaction with people doing surrogacy in this book or a proper exploration of their opinions which I found disappointing.
in terms of where I stood on this book and Lewis argument I still have a lot of questions and comments that i won’t really go into because 1. I cba typing it all out and 2. I struggled with this one a lot and there’s probably a high chance I’ve misinterpreted what Lewis has said.
in terms of prose this is an very dense text that only gets more dense and complex as you go on. my perception of Lewis is of a hyper-academic, very-divorced-from-reality (sorry!!) sort of utopian commentator and that makes me a little bit weary of the stuff she says. even if it’s reasonable and good, when you don’t communicate stuff in a normal, penetrable way then its easy to feel like this sort of ideas and arguments only belong to and can be discussed by certain types of people.
it’s a shame because I think this is an important topic. nonetheless I will have a go at the next book she is writing!
ruarilpa's review against another edition
5.0
yeah just incredibly excellent really - a rampant (re)call to abolish the family !! let us all be nurturing, collective fleshy selves !
sophiem_ng's review against another edition
5.0
Finally read this book! What can I say, it was extremely interesting, I am once again struck by the openness and generative nature of abolitionist thinking: this particularly hit me in a passage about post partum depression, in which I thought that if we’re all mothering each other, if we’re all surrogates for each other, then it’ll all be fine (obvs not what Sophie Lewis wrote, her words were much more articulated and beautiful - but the thought was very soothing for me). Not only is this a book about taking children seriously, it’s a book that gestures towards the explosion of categories, we’re all each other’s children, all each other’s parents in the shifting reproductive commune she points towards. And it is fully within reach, the second you start thinking about it seriously, and realise how everyday different forms of parenting expose the chimera of the nuclear family a bit more.
Sophie Lewis’s writing is witty and clear, and poetic at times. I am very inspired by the way their thesis lay the ground for this book, it struck me as a very inspiring way to take academic writing out of academia, and write in an accessible yet demanding (in a good way, the French word exigeant works better but demanding is the only equivalent I find) manner.
A great book, u should read it, very into the reproductive commune and abolishing the nuclear family !
Sophie Lewis’s writing is witty and clear, and poetic at times. I am very inspired by the way their thesis lay the ground for this book, it struck me as a very inspiring way to take academic writing out of academia, and write in an accessible yet demanding (in a good way, the French word exigeant works better but demanding is the only equivalent I find) manner.
A great book, u should read it, very into the reproductive commune and abolishing the nuclear family !
devinbookman's review against another edition
5.0
Neither supportive of the current state of surrogacy nor critical of the practice in general, this book is instead a clear, powerful, nuanced examination of the value and ubiquity of surrogacy as a concept, the fault in assuming surrogacy as it currently exists to serve capitalists is adequate or representative of the practice, and the necessity of coming to terms with and expanding our societal understanding of surrogacy in a broader global context. Lewis blurs the lines between what we perceive as biological motherhood and surrogacy, rejecting the hierarchy we take for granted in gestational labor and ownership. Full Surrogacy Now is meandering at times, but each tangent ultimately addresses the book's central premise that we need to accept surrogacy while simultaneously radically transforming it and our assumptions of what it entails. Highly recommended.
daire_'s review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
3.0
This book had great potential but unfortunately the overall argument and indeed the conclusion were lost in a weird mix of vague points and dense, inaccessible language.