The Social Life of Blood, Milk & Sperm

Abstract

In Banking on the Body, Kara Swanson exhaustively documents Americans’ long and varied history buying and selling blood, mothers’ milk, and sperm. By mapping the social life of these things as they have moved in and out of the market from the late nineteenth century until the present day, she debunks the myth that human bodies (and their components) have remained outside of the market since the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. No longer can any reasonable person claim that an impermeable barrier separates things that are for sale from those that are not.

Keywords: book review, commoditization, blood banks, sperm banks, Zelizer, hostile worlds, civic property, body fluids