6. Seeing the Phenomenon

This chapter discusses the radical technologization of women’s reproductive body in ART or assisted reproductive technology. This discussion centers around the claim that neither phenomenology nor social constructivism is by itself able to discuss this technologization. The reason for this is that phenomenology is insufficiently empirically sensitive to the what is involved in ART, whereas (critical) social constructivism remains trapped in a ‘productivist’ dialectic that misses relations between nature and technology that fall outside the scope of production. By critically discussing and re-combining Heidegger’s and Feenberg’s work, the chapter claims that ART frames women’s bodies neither as subjects, nor objects of technical action, but as resources. However, such technologization is itself forgotten, leading not only to self-objectification, but, particularly in the case of IVG, rather than the subject becoming become a more or less stable object, the subject/object boundary dissolves altogether. The chapter explores the notion of vocation, as well as Heidegger’s meditative questioning of technology to explore the limits of such technologization.