This paper comes out of a panel honoring the work of Anne Donchin (1940-2014), which took place at the 2016 Congress of the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) in Edinburgh. My general aim is to highlight the contributions Anne made to feminist bioethics, and to feminist reproductive ethics in particular. My more specific aim, however, is to have a kind of conversation with Anne, through her work, about whether reproductive justice could demand insurance coverage for in vitro (...) fertilization. I quote liberally from Anne’s work for this purpose, but also to shower the reader with her words, reminding those of us who knew her well what a wonderful colleague she was. (shrink)

This paper imagines what the liberatory possibilities of (full) ectogenesis are, insofar as it separates woman from female reproductive function. Even before use with human infants, ectogenesis productively disrupts the biological paradigm underlying current gender categories and divisions of labour. I begin by presenting a theory of women’s oppression drawn from the radical feminisms of the 1960s, which sees oppression as deeply rooted in biology. On this view, oppressive social meanings are overlaid upon biology and body, as artefacts of culture (...) and history. I then argue that ectogenesis should be pursued to replace two modes of assisted gestation that can be seen as outgrowths of oppressive assumptions about women's function, ectogenesis should be pursued to replace two modes of assisted gestation. These are gestational surrogacy and uterine transplant, which arise partly from gendered, pronatalist, and geneticist norms. These practices are supported by assumptions about women’s identity and value. Pursuing technologies such as ectogenesis, which weaken the presumed link between biology and gender, is beneficial to (trans-inclusionary radical) feminist aims, as part of a broad project of challenging dominant power relations resting on and maintaining gender categories. By allowing the conceptual separation of female reproductive function from ‘woman’, ectogenesis raises questions about how we determine who counts in this gender identity, and also how we value those who claim the identity ‘woman’. I conclude that ectogenesis has the potential to challenge traditional patriarchal family structures, and thence all other male-dominated structures (of work, education, cultural production), allowing a reimagining of the family and society in more radical ways than we have yet achieved. (shrink)

Elly Teman, Birthing a mother: The surrogate body and the pregnant self, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010, reviewed by Omi Leissner.

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the changes that the implementation of artificial wombs would bring to society, the family, and the concept of motherhood and fatherhood through the lens of two recent books: Helen Sedgwick’s The Growing Season and Rebecca Ann Smith’s Baby X. Each of the two novels, set in a near future, follows the work of a scientist who develops artificial womb technology. Significantly, both women experience concerns about the technology and its long-term effects (...) that make both of them leave their laboratories and rethink the technology they invented, while considering its many ethical implications. Both novels can be seen as feminist revisionary rewritings of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, rejecting the vision of rows of mass-produced, anonymous babies in artificial wombs, stressing instead the closeness of the parents to their offspring. They nevertheless critically evaluate not only the many potential benefits for women of ectogenetic technology but also the possible disadvantages and pitfalls. (shrink)

Assessing what counts as infertility has practical implications: access to (state-funded) fertility treatment is usually premised on meeting the criteria that constitute the chosen definition of infertility. In this paper, I argue that we should adopt the expression “involuntary childlessness” to discuss the normative dimensions of people’s inability to conceive. Once this conceptualization is adopted, it becomes clear that there exists a mismatch between those who experience involuntary childlessness and those that are currently able to access fertility treatment. My concern (...) in this article is explaining why such a mismatch deserves attention and what reasons can be advanced to justify addressing it. My case rests on a three-part argument: that there are good reasons to address the suffering associated with involuntary childlessness; that people would decide to insure against it; and that involuntary childlessness is characterized by a prima facie exceptional kind of desire. (shrink)

Many countries are experiencing increasing levels of demand for access to assisted reproductive technologies. Policies regarding who can access ART and with what support from a collective purse are highly contested, raising questions about what state responses are justified. Whilst much of this debate has focused on the status of infertility as a disease, we argue that this is something of a distraction, since disease framing does not provide the far-reaching, robust justification for state support that proponents of ART seem (...) to suppose. Instead, we propose that debates about appropriate state responses should consider the various implications for health and broader well-being that may be associated with difficulties starting a family. We argue that the harms and disruption to valued life projects of subfertility-related suffering may provide a stronger basis for justifying state support in this context. Further, we suggest that, whilst ART may alleviate some of the harm resulting from subfertility, population-level considerations can indicate a broader range of interventions aimed at tackling different sources of subfertility-related harm, consistent with broader public health aims. (shrink)

Around the world, millions of children are in need of parental care. In response to this global crisis, some philosophers defend a moral duty for prospective parents to adopt children rather than procreate. Challenges to the duty focus almost exclusively on parents’ desires to have biological children. However, reasons deriving primarily from one’s membership in a social group that favour procreation over adoption or oppose transracial adoptions are largely overlooked. In this dissertation, I examine whether group-based reasons could justifiably override (...) a duty to adopt for prospective parents who are members of racially oppressed groups. I ultimately argue that group-based interests cannot outweigh the needs of existing children for parental care, and thus provide further support for the duty to adopt. My thesis is divided into four chapters. In Chapter 1, I introduce a duty to adopt and argue that it is resilient against a series of proposed defeating conditions and foundational challenges. In Chapter 2, I develop three group-based reasons in favour of procreation that challenge the duty: reparative justice, racial solidarity, and cultural preservation. In Chapter 3, I argue that these reasons do not definitively support procreation over adoption and, instead, seem to favour adopting children either within or outside one’s racial group. I then identify remaining challenges to the duty that take issue with transracial adoptions and place a high value on children’s belonging in same-race families or in their communities of origin. In Chapter 4, I argue that the needs of individual children to receive timely parental care should not be compromised by groups’ interests and that children’s relationships with their communities of origin can be maintained in transracial or extra-communal adoptive placements. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine ethical issues that concern fertility preservation (FP) technologies for women from a feminist perspective. FP technologies involve the removal, cryopreservation and subsequent storage of reproductive materials for future use. The aim of these technologies is to preserve the option of future genetic reproduction. FP technologies have been developed in the cancer context because infertility is one of the long-term side-effects of many cancers or cancer therapies. Many FP technologies are still experimental, but some technologies are (...) becoming available to healthy women who wish to guard against age-related infertility. Although FP technologies are expanding women’s reproductive options and benefitting some women by satisfying their desires for genetically-related children, these technologies pose numerous physical, emotional and financial risks to women. I maintain that a feminist examination of choice is necessary for the ethical provision of FP technologies within patriarchal contexts. My analysis begins by demarcating two oppressive social biases from one another: namely pronatalism and biologism. I argue that each of these biases can unduly influence women’s reproductive choices about FP technologies. I then consider how these biases might be identified and challenged in the FP decision-making context. I outline an ethical process of informed choice that is equipped to protect patient autonomy when such autonomy is threatened by these biases. I then consider whether the choice to use FP should be available to both women within and without the cancer contexts. I argue that both disease-related FP and age-related FP can be morally permissible. Finally, I consider whether there should be an upper age limit on women’s access to their stored reproductive materials. I argue that age can be morally relevant to reproduction and thus age limits on access to assisted reproduction are morally permissible. I conclude by suggesting how feminist insights might inform policies on FP technologies and related assisted reproductive technologies. In sum, my dissertation shows that a feminist analysis of choices about FP is essential for ensuring the ethical provision of FP technologies. (shrink)