:: biotech ::

How is it possible in 2002 to have a baby, constrained by a law based on the archaic/ fundamentalist assumption that a family equals man+woman+marriage = children?

...it denies women's autonomous decision of motherhood, regardless of formal ties and heteronormativity.

...it privileges a limited idea of motherhood as a fertilized egg, devaluing the woman's sensations, affection and internationality involved in maternity.

...it gives legal status to the embryo, making motherhood and irreversible, absolute choice.(regardless of the mother's health, or possible problems during pregnancy)(the law denies the right to abortion in case the fertilized oocyte might bear defects-you wanted it - now you keep it!!)

...it damages women's bodies, by obliging mothers to limited in number and spread over time oocyte implanting, stressing the body and damaging the psychological health. all in the name of an abstract conception of life, "potential life".
This law, designed to regulate "the jungle of test-tube" regulations, is to be approved in Spring.

Combined with the inefficient and complex law on adoption, it becomes a weapon against women's free choice of motherhood. There's an ongoing battle carried-on by pro-life religious movements, grounded in bourgeois and Christian ideologies (man+woman+marriage+house+2cars+countryhouse=children).
The erosion of Welfare State ongoing since the last two decades, impacted everybody. Today, it impacts mostly the subjects still only entitled to a weak citizenship.

Assistance and protection from the state, which characterized the fordist era, are weakened. The development of new technologies and fields of science, gives shaped to new social phenomena in need of regulation. except that regulation is the excuse for an enforcement of exclusion, restricting access to basic rights, and giving access to goods and information only to a small powerful minority (such as patents for multinational corporations).

For women, the change involved mainly the privatization of healthcare clinics, which makes prevention and access to services for birth control, abortion, pregnancy and sexual health less and less available. Another consequence of privatization is the growth of supposedly volunteer-based free services, actually run by catholic organizations, against the previous organizations born from the feminist movement.
similarly the new law on prostitution takes away the rights won by the feminists in the seventies.

Such law regulates and plan "Eros centers", defining specific urban areas for prostitution, restricting the right to freely chosen self-prostitution, as was in the older "legge Merlin". This change forces sex workers to be secluded in "Eros markets" and
to be subject to mandatory medical tests.

Another aspect is the renewal of art.85, on "transvestites", as culpable of the crime of covering one's identity, subject to punishment -such as invalidation of their passports. (as it happened in the last few months to some Italian trannies, despite the battles won in the last twenty years).

Against all this, many men and women self-organized their own structures, for social need and good.
(an example is Hera, an association based in Catania where parents wannabes and doctors funded their own group to promote ART-assistive reproductive technologies),
Another example is the Italian transsexual movement (MIT) and the sex-workers self-organizing for their own rights. All these examples are inspiring for their effectiveness in terms of social and political practices, and strengthening the right of self-determination, of free choice on our material bodies. All these points are ultimately powerful social transformations.

We understand the emergence of new technologies, markets, knowledges, and the need to extract social value from them, to make them into a collective wealth.

The protest organized in Torino for November 16 is an occasion to discuss all this, as a movement of women, men, GayLesbianBisexTransQueer, sexworkers, hackers, copyleftsupporters, migrants which we belong to, trying to mobilize creatively.
We would like to continue with a nationwide meeting, to network and share our efforts and projects, beyond our specificities.



	For the many, not for everybody.
	How is it possible in 2002 to have a baby, constrained by a law based on the archaic/ fundamentalist assumption that a family equals man+woman+marriage = children? ...it denies women's autonomous decision of motherhood, regardless of formal ties and heteronormativity. ...it privileges a limited idea of motherhood as a fertilized egg, devaluing the woman's sensations, affection and internationality involved in maternity. ...it gives legal status to the embryo, making motherhood and irreversible, absolute choice.(regardless of the mother's health, or possible problems during pregnancy)(the law denies the right to abortion in case the fertilized oocyte might bear defects-you wanted it - now you keep it!!) ...it damages women's bodies, by obliging mothers to limited in number and spread over time oocyte implanting, stressing the body and damaging the psychological health. all in the name of an abstract conception of life, "potential life". This law, designed to regulate "the jungle of test-tube" regulations, is to be approved in Spring. Combined with the inefficient and complex law on adoption, it becomes a weapon against women's free choice of motherhood. There's an ongoing battle carried-on by pro-life religious movements, grounded in bourgeois and Christian ideologies (man+woman+marriage+house+2cars+countryhouse=children). The erosion of Welfare State ongoing since the last two decades, impacted everybody. Today, it impacts mostly the subjects still only entitled to a weak citizenship. Assistance and protection from the state, which characterized the fordist era, are weakened. The development of new technologies and fields of science, gives shaped to new social phenomena in need of regulation. except that regulation is the excuse for an enforcement of exclusion, restricting access to basic rights, and giving access to goods and information only to a small powerful minority (such as patents for multinational corporations). For women, the change involved mainly the privatization of healthcare clinics, which makes prevention and access to services for birth control, abortion, pregnancy and sexual health less and less available. Another consequence of privatization is the growth of supposedly volunteer-based free services, actually run by catholic organizations, against the previous organizations born from the feminist movement. similarly the new law on prostitution takes away the rights won by the feminists in the seventies. Such law regulates and plan "Eros centers", defining specific urban areas for prostitution, restricting the right to freely chosen self-prostitution, as was in the older "legge Merlin". This change forces sex workers to be secluded in "Eros markets" and to be subject to mandatory medical tests. Another aspect is the renewal of art.85, on "transvestites", as culpable of the crime of covering one's identity, subject to punishment -such as invalidation of their passports. (as it happened in the last few months to some Italian trannies, despite the battles won in the last twenty years). Against all this, many men and women self-organized their own structures, for social need and good. (an example is Hera, an association based in Catania where parents wannabes and doctors funded their own group to promote ART-assistive reproductive technologies), Another example is the Italian transsexual movement (MIT) and the sex-workers self-organizing for their own rights. All these examples are inspiring for their effectiveness in terms of social and political practices, and strengthening the right of self-determination, of free choice on our material bodies. All these points are ultimately powerful social transformations. We understand the emergence of new technologies, markets, knowledges, and the need to extract social value from them, to make them into a collective wealth. The protest organized in Torino for November 16 is an occasion to discuss all this, as a movement of women, men, GayLesbianBisexTransQueer, sexworkers, hackers, copyleftsupporters, migrants which we belong to, trying to mobilize creatively. We would like to continue with a nationwide meeting, to network and share our efforts and projects, beyond our specificities.