1 Bioethics Beyond Altruism 15the best nutritional and immunological start in life (Murphy 2000 );
they extend treasured proto-altruistic affects of care and self-sacrifice
into the public domain (Berlant 2008 ). In the process of donating
excess or surplus breastmilk for others to consume, peer milk sharers
construct networks of bio-intimacy through which they forge relational
and caring ties, as well as objectifying their moral identities with friend,
family and community groups as generous and kind-hearted.
In the bio- and reproscapes referred to by anthropology and sociology
scholars, commercial biotechnology firms, companies and wealthy indi-
viduals capitalise on the desires of breastmilk, gamete and organ donors
to share the generative aspect of their bodies, expropriating their labour
and donative gifts by profiting from their good will or financial vulner-
ability. From a phenomenological perspective‚ the altruistic donor may
make a deliberate choice to provision human biological materials and
services as a way of crafting the self and taking responsibility for oth-
ers. However, as Lawrence Cohen ( 2005 ) has observed, the movement
of body products and biosubstances to different global markets in the
bioscape is an uneven and ethically fraught process. Due to the eco-
nomic position of many tissue providers, Cohen maintains that some
bodies are more ‘bioavailable’ than others (e.g. see Pande’s ( 2015 ) dis-
cussion of surrogate mothers in India). Likewise, Monir Moniruzzaman
( 2012 ) has identified the movement of organs in transnational com-
modity chains, that connect people from affluent countries with donors
and vendors from low-income countries, as a kind of ‘bioviolence’ that
has detrimental implications for unwitting individuals caught up in the
illicit organ trade. Susanne Lundin ( 2016 ) points out that this may be
why the screening of organ donors who present as blood or affinal rela-
tives for transplant recipients in hospitals with reputations for unregu-
lated medical tourism is less robust than in jurisdictions where such
practices are prohibited. The global oöcyte trade is also highly stratified.
Across transnational fertility clinics in southern Spain, Romania and
Crete, egg vending is more lucrative for Eastern European egg provid-
ers with phenotypical similarity to their wealthy European recipients
(fair skin and colouring) than it is for women from Southern Europe‚ for
whom physical likeness is less evident (Waldby and Cooper 2008 ). For
these donors and tissue providers, the relinquishment of body products,