C. Yoshie,
"Sex change" surgery "changes nothing about reproductive capacity"? Since when? Clearly it changes everything about reproductive capacity, in fact all it really does on a reliable, functional level is remove a person's reproductive capacity.
As for the cultural-political implications of reproductive technology, until we can grow babies in test tubes, they all grow in women. Whether women get pregnant in vitro or in utero, or whether they have surrogates make babies for them is not all that significant, taken all around. After all, single mothers, lesbians and surrogates don't *require* in vitro fertilization to get pregnant, clearly. I think it's interesting that many leftist women seem to take delight in this idea of making men sort of unnecessary and vestigial to the reproductive process when arguably the biggest problem that faces mothers in America is men who decide to opt out of their parental responsibilities or act sexually without regard to the reproductive consequences. What we're really talking about is increased alienation in the reproductive process which, it seems to me, is a pretty consistent trend among the bourgeoisie (wet nurses, etc.). Birth control is very different in effect (although it arguably comes out of the same trend) since it makes the majority of pregnancies deliberate rather than incidental to other social relationships. That arguably decreases alienation between parent and child.
peace