EXPERIMENTATION WITH WOMEN: SCIENCE FICTION OR REALITY?

Many people will not have heard about the experimentation that has been, and continues to be, carried out on women, because much of the media makes no mention of the matter. Just a few examples that could be mentioned are experimentation with the contraceptive pill, forced sterilization, egg donation, surrogate motherhood, kidney and other organ donation, and unnecessary therapy and surgery. In a few cases such experimentation could well be termed exploitation of women, with all kinds of excuses or humanitarian reasons, and sometimes communitarian purposes and even reasons concerning possible benefits for the whole of society, being mentioned. The present work aims to stimulate reflection about some types of research which can only be regarded as exploitation of women.