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The first thing to clarify in my review is that this book has nothing to do with the recent crisis about abortion in the USA. The US Supreme court overturned women's right to abortion in Roe v Wade, which was reported around the world as a very
backward step. The reader might think from the title that it is then about the modern technologies now available in the field of fertility, conception and childbirth. These are mentioned of course in Part Two with a good summary of what is available (pp. 77-9). But the book is actually a psychoanalytic exploration of the consequences of these new technological realities.
It is prefaced by a review of the psychoanalytic theory of sexuality in Part One. Originally published in Italian, it is beautifully translated by Adam Elgar. There are three words to mention that stand out in the book, perhaps with a note of ‘tongue in cheek’ to lighten a complex and controversial subject. The first is ‘Scandal’, to be explored a little later. The second is ‘Caesura’, the word for a break in a line of poetry to allow for taking a breath, and the third, ‘Excursus’, which onomatopoeic enough in meaning, describes that line (comprising the whole of Part One), which is actually 79 pages long! If it is a criticism, because it will completely take the reader's mind away from the main controversial focus of the book, the new biotechnologies, it is a very small one because that particular ‘line’ is such a useful and indepth revision of the Oedipus-centred, primal scene based, Freudian theory of sexuality in itself.
In Part One, be prepared to revise Freud on sexuality. The chapters are entitled, ‘The return of the repressed’ and ‘The world of yesterday: end of innocence’; the latter about presenting ‘Beyond the pleasure principle’ to austere, respectable Vienna. In this chapter, Freud's case histories, little Hans and Dora, are revisited. Then, Chapter 3, the perversions, infantile sexuality and puberty, and Freud's ‘3 essays on sexuality’. Chapte