The Female Body : A journey through Law, Culture and Medicine

Object of fascination and fantasy, the female body can be idealized, reified
or shrouded. "It is we who make women what they are worth and that is why they
are worthless", proclaimed Mirabeau in the days of the Enlightenment, to which
Aragon later replied: "Woman is the future of Man". The ambiguities of the
female body are therein exposed.

This work examines the relationship between the female body and biomedicine.
Many possibilities are offered to women through biomedical techniques: from
assistance to procreate (with assisted reproduction) to refusal to do so
(contraception, voluntary sterilization, termination of pregnancy); to be
informed of genetic predispositions (through the use of available genetic
tests); or to improve their physical appearance with cosmetic surgery. But a
recurrent question arises: with its rapid progress and its extreme
medicalization of the body, can biomedicine liberate women? Or rather, given
the risks of the commodification of the body or its parts, is it not a source
of exploitation ?

The authors of this work, jurists, anthropologists, philosophers, sociologists
and doctors, have explored these questions. The contributions from nineteen
countries in this international multidisciplinary study analyse the reality of
the amazing developments of biomedicine on the female body. Numerous systems
are compared for the first time; European, African, North and South American,
but also Chinese and Japanese. Beyond highlighting differences, and
identifying similarities in the development of "enhancement medicine", the
objective of this work is ultimately to show the complexity surrounding the
question of a woman's freedom over her body and the extent to which this is
limited by the State.