This article examines the human placenta not only as a scientific, medical and biological entity but as a consumer bio-product. In the emergent placenta economy, the human placenta is exchanged and gains potentiality as food, medicine and cosmetics. Drawing on empirical research from the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Japan, the authors use feminist cultural analysis and consumer theories to discuss how the placenta is exchanged and gains commodity status as a medical supplement, smoothie, pill and anti-ageing lotion. (...) Placenta preparers and new mothers cite medical properties and spirituality as reasons for eating or encapsulating the placenta, reinstating ideas of the liberated good mother. Meanwhile, the cosmetics industry situates the placenta as an extract and hence a commodity, re-naturalizing it as an anti-ageing, rejuvenating and whitening bio-product. The authors conclude that, in the emergent bio-economy, the dichotomy between the inner and the outer body is deconstructed, while the placenta gains clinical and industrial as well as affective value. (shrink)

Assisted reproductive technologies and abortion prompt serious questions about how we should understand the complex relationship between money, markets, choice, and the care relationship. This essay defines “patient” and “consumer,” and then describes how they are less important than their attributes. Then it describes theories of commodification and consumption in reproductive contexts and their consequences, from compliance and coercion to resistance and creativity. It also examines whether ART and abortion are “markets.” Finally, this essay explores how the attributes which comprise (...) the patient/consumer roles can be incorporated into health care reform, and the implications of health care reform models on ART and abortion. (shrink)