About this topic
Summary Philosophy of pregnancy may engage or occur within a number of areas of philosophical research: metaphysics, philosophy of biology, bioethics and philosophy of medicine, feminist philosophy, history of philosophy, phenomenology, and political philosophy. As such, pregnancy is a topic or a theme in philosophy, rather than a cohesive area of research, although in many cases it lies at some intersection of the aforementioned areas. Discussions about pregnancy may regard questions about what pregnancy is (the criteria for pregnancy or for gestation) or when pregnancy starts (i.e., about whether fertilization or implantation marks the start of pregnancy); they may regard questions about pregnancy as a challenge to the presumed individuality or numerical identity of pregnant organisms, humans, or persons, with upshots for questions about biological individuality, units of selection, humanity, and personhood; they may regard empirical questions about the evolution or nature of pregnancy as a reproductive mode, and about medical considerations and clinical findings about pregnancy such as regard contraception, abortion, pregnancy loss, developmental processes, or teratogens; they may regard bioethical questions about pregnancy having to do with patient autonomy, conflicts of interest between the mother and fetus, altruistic or commercial surrogacy, ectogenesis, or medical surveillance and criminalization during pregnancy; they may regard feminist questions about sex, gender, and pregnancy, for instance, questions about pregnancy discrimination within and without the law, or the role of pregnancy in women's discrimination, oppression, or exploitation; they may regard pregnancy as a metaphor, or the appropriation of pregnancy as a metaphor; they may regard questions about the history of pregnancy and how women's or other female mammals' reproductive roles have historically been understood; they may regard questions about the phenomenology of pregnancy; and they may regard questions about the politics of pregnancy, for instance, its role in social reproduction.
Related

Contents
265 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 265
  1. Pregnant women with fetal abnormalities: The forgotten people in the abortion debate.L. De Crespigny & Savulescu, J. - manuscript
    of (from Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics) Medical Journal of Australia, 188 (2) 100 - 102.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  2. The Pregnancy Rescue Case: a reply to Hendricks.Nathan William Davies - forthcoming - Journal of Medical Ethics.
    In “The Pregnancy Rescue Case: why abortion is immoral”, Hendricks presents The Pregnancy Rescue Case. In this reply I argue that even if it would be better (i.e. less bad) for the abortion to be prevented in The Pregnancy Rescue Case, that does not mean that typical abortions are impermissible. I also argue that there is a possible explanation, consistent with the pro-choice view and empirically testable, as to why people would think it better for the abortion to be prevented (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Toward a Philosophical Theology of Pregnancy Loss.Amber L. Griffioen - forthcoming - In Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode (ed.), Meanings of Mourning: Perspectives on Death, Loss and Grief. Lanham, MD 20706, USA:
    Issues surrounding pregnancy loss are rarely addressed in Christian philosophy. Yet a modest estimate based on the empirical and medical literature places the rate of pregnancy loss between fertilization and term at somewhere between 40–60%. If miscarriage really is as common as the research gives us to believe, then it would seem a pressing topic for a Christian philosophy of the future to address. This paper attempts to begin this work by showing how thinking more closely about pregnancy loss understood (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. Midwives’ experience of respectful maternity care (RMC) globally: A meta-synthesis.Simin Haghdoost, Mina Iravani, Ali Hassan Rahmani & Simin Montazeri - forthcoming - Nursing Ethics.
    Background Respectful maternity care (RMC) emphasizes the social and relational elements of maternity care and is a crucial part of initiatives to improve service accessibility and quality. Women's perceptions have influenced much of what we know about RMC and contempt in the labor ward. In order to understand midwives' perspectives of RMC, this meta-synthesis focused on them. Method For this inquiry, the databases PubMed/Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched to find studies on midwives' perceptions of RMC written (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. The Pregnancy Rescue Case: Why Abortion is Immoral.Perry Hendricks - forthcoming - Journal of Medical Ethics.
    In cases in which we must choose between either (i) preventing a woman from remaining unwillingly pregnant or (ii) preventing a fetus from being killed, we should prevent the fetus from being killed. But this suggests that in typical cases abortion is wrong: typical abortions involve preventing a woman from remaining unwillingly pregnant over preventing a fetus from being killed. So abortion is typically wrong—and this holds whether or not fetuses are persons.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  6. Pregnant Thinkers.David Mark Kovacs - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    Do pregnant mothers have fetuses as parts? According to the “parthood view” they do, while according to the “containment view” they don’t. This paper raises a novel puzzle about pregnancy: if mothers have their fetuses as parts, then wherever there is a pregnant mother, there is also a smaller thinking being that has every part of the mother except for those that overlap with the fetus. This problem resembles a familiar overpopulation puzzle from the personal identity literature, known as the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Who should provide the uterus? The ethics of live donor recruitment for uterus transplantation.Ji Young Lee - forthcoming - Journal of Medical Ethics.
    Uterus transplantation (UTx) is an experimental surgery likely to face the issue of organ shortage. In my article, I explore how this issue might be addressed by changing the prevailing practices around live uterus donor recruitment. Currently, women with children – often the mothers of recipients – tend to be overrepresented as donors. Yet, other potentially eligible groups who may have an interest in providing their uterus – such as transgender men, or cisgender women who do not wish to gestate (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Does ectogestation have oppressive potential?Ji-Young Lee, Ezio Di Nucci & Andrea Bidoli - forthcoming - Journal of Social Philosophy.
    In the future, full ectogestation – in which artificial placenta technology would be used to carry out the entirety of gestation – could be an alternative to human pregnancy. This article analyzes some underexplored objections to ectogestation which relate to the possibility for new and continuing forms of social oppression. In particular, we examine whether ectogestation could be linked to an unwarranted de-valuing of certain aspects of female reproductive embodiment, or exacerbate objectionable kinds of scrutiny over the reproductive choices of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Update on selected ethical questions: New methods of handling ectopic pregnancies.Ectopic Pregnancies - forthcoming - Communicating the Catholic Vision of Life: Proceedings of the Twelfth Bishops' Workshop, Dallas, Texas.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  10. Detached from Humanity: Artificial Gestation and the Christian Dilemma.Daniel Rodger & Bruce P. Blackshaw - forthcoming - Christian Bioethics.
    The development of artificial womb technology is proceeding rapidly and will present important ethical and theological challenges for Christians. While there has been extensive secular discourse on artificial wombs in recent years, there has been little Christian engagement with this topic. There are broadly two primary uses of artificial womb technology—ectogestation as a form of enhanced neonatal care, where some of the gestation period takes place in an artificial womb, and ectogenesis, where the entire gestation period is within an artificial (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Logic of Pregnancy.Jonna Bornemark - 2023 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 48 (2):128-140.
    This article takes its point of departure in Bracha Ettinger’s discussion on the “matrixial borderspace”: the structure of the experience of “the womb,” both from a “mother-pole” and a “fetus-pole”. Ettinger describes this borderspace as a place of differentiation-in-co-emergence, separation-in-jointness, and distance-in-proximity. The question this article poses is what kind of logic this experience is an expression of, as there seems to be a discrepancy in relation to the classical Aristotelian logic of identity. As an alternative to classical Aristotelian logic, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  12. Transformations in philosophy and legal practice.Suki Finn, Jill Marshall, Anna Pathe-Smith & Victoria Adkins - 2023 - In Transformations in philosophy and legal practice.
    This chapter provides a historical account of the transformation of pregnancy through philosophical theory and legal practice. What has remained seemingly consistent across history, though, is the lack of rights a pregnant woman can enjoy. Whilst it may manifest differently across time and place, unfortunately misogynistic attitudes persist, and this is reflected in the continual degrading of the gestator (and gestation), which is reinforced by certain philosophical theorising and technological advancement. We thus urge caution in making philosophical claims about the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. Pregnancy, Parthood and Proper Overlap: A Critique of Kingma.Alexander Geddes - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (2):476-491.
    Elselijn Kingma argues that, in cases of mammalian placental pregnancy, the foster (roughly, the post-implantation embryo/foetus) is part of the gravida (the pregnant organism). But she does not consider the possibility of proper overlap. I show that this generates a number of serious problems for her argument and trace the oversight to a quite general issue within the literature on biological individuality. Doing so provides an opportunity to pull apart and clarify the relations between some importantly distinct questions concerning organismality (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  14. Policy change without ethical analysis? Commentary on the publication of Smajdor.Elena Popa, Jakub Zawiła-Niedźwiecki & Michał Zabdyr-Jamróz - 2023 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 44 (4):379-385.
    This commentary addresses the proposal and argumentative line presented in the paper ‘Whole Body Gestational Donation’ (WBGD) by Anna Smajdor (2023), published as an intended ‘outrageous argument’ in a dedicated special issue of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. We believe that the paper is fatally flawed due to its lack of engagement with relevant approaches in ethics and essential sources in health sciences as well as its insufficient, superficial, and rash argumentation. Its critical weaknesses include, among others, that it does not (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Reproductive Violence and Settler Statecraft.Elena Ruíz, Nora Berenstain & Nerli Paredes-Ruvalcaba - 2023 - In Sanaullah Khan & Elliott Schwebach (eds.), Global Histories of Trauma: Globalization, Displacement and Psychiatry. Routledge. pp. 150-173.
    Gender-based forms of administrative violence, such as reproductive violence, are the result of systems designed to enact population-level harms through the production and forcible imposition of colonial systems of gender. Settler statecraft has long relied on the strategic promotion of sexual and reproductive violence. Patterns of reproductive violence adapt and change to align with the enduring goals and evolving needs of settler colonial occupation, dispossession, and containment. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to end the constitutional right to abortion in (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Book Review of Sarah S. Richardson, The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects (2021). [REVIEW]Maja Sidzinska - 2023 - Philosophy of Science Association Newsletter 1.
  17. Cogito, Ergo Sumus? The Pregnancy Problem in Descartes's Philosophy.Maja Sidzińska - 2023 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 13 (2).
    Given Descartes’ metaphysical and natural-philosophic commitments, it is very difficult to theorize the pregnant human being as a human being under his system. Specifically, given (1) Descartes’ account of generation, (2) his commitment to mechanistic explanations where bodies are concerned, (3) his reliance on a subtle individuating principle for human (and animal) bodies, and (4) his metaphysics of human beings, which include minds, bodies, and mind-body unions, there is no available human substance or entity which may clearly be the subject (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Whole body gestational donation.Anna Smajdor - 2023 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 44 (2):113-124.
    Whole body gestational donation offers an alternative means of gestation for prospective parents who wish to have children but cannot, or prefer not to, gestate. It seems plausible that some people would be prepared to consider donating their whole bodies for gestational purposes just as some people donate parts of their bodies for organ donation. We already know that pregnancies can be successfully carried to term in brain-dead women. There is no obvious medical reason why initiating such pregnancies would not (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  19. Artificial Placenta – Imminent Ethical Considerations for Research Trials and Clinical Translation.E. J. Verweij & Elselijn Kingma - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics 23 (5):85-87.
    De Bie et al. (2023) propose an organizing framework for different stages of human gestational development from conception to the viable premature. They also identify ethical considerations and con...
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  20. Twin pregnancy reduction is not an ‘all or nothing’ problem: a response to Räsänen.Dunja Begović, Elizabeth Chloe Romanis & E. J. Verweij - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (2):139-141.
    In his paper, ‘Twin pregnancy, fetal reduction and the ‘all or nothing problem’, Räsänen sets out to apply Horton’s ‘all or nothing’ problem to the ethics of multifetal pregnancy reduction from a twin to a singleton pregnancy. Horton’s problem involves the following scenario: imagine that two children are about to be crushed by a collapsing building. An observer would have three options: do nothing, save one child by allowing their arms to be crushed, or save both by allowing their arms (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  21. Can routine screening for alcohol consumption in pregnancy be ethically and legally justified?Rebecca Bennett & Catherine Bowden - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (8):512-516.
    In the UK, it has been proposed that alongside the current advice to abstain from alcohol completely in pregnancy, there should be increased screening of pregnant women for alcohol consumption in order to prevent instances of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network published guidelines in 2019 recommending that standardised screening questionnaires and associated use of biomarkers should be considered to identify alcohol exposure in pregnancy. This was followed in 2020 by the National Institute for Health and Care (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  22. A Pregnant Pause: Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Suspended Time.Victoria Browne - 2022 - Hypatia 37 (2):447-468.
    This article takes the rupturing of normative, linear, reproductive time that occurs in the event of miscarriage as a potentially generative philosophical moment—a catalyst to rethink pregnancy aside from the expectation of child-production. Pregnant time is usually imagined as a linear passage toward birth. Accordingly, the one who “miscarries” appears as suspended within an arrested journey that never arrived at its destination, or indeed, as ejected from pregnant time altogether. But here I propose to rethink both pregnancy and miscarriage through (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. Persons and women, not womb‐givers: Reflections on gestational surrogacy and uterus transplantation.Giulia Cavaliere - 2022 - Bioethics 36 (9):989-996.
    In a recent article in this journal, Alex Mullock, Elizabeth Chloe Romanis and Dunja Begović provide an analysis of gestational surrogacy and uterus transplantation (UTx) from the perspective of those who may decide to act as gestational surrogates and womb donors, referred to as ‘womb‐givers’. In this article, I advance two sets of claims aimed at critically engaging with some aspects of their analysis. Firstly, I argue that the expression ‘womb‐givers’ obscures the biologically, socially and politically salient issue that those (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. Agency, Pregnancy and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life.Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger (eds.) - 2022 - Oxford, UK: Routledge.
    This book provides extensive and critical engagement with some of the most recent and compelling arguments favoring abortion choice. It features original essays from leading and emerging philosophers, bioethicists and medical professionals that present philosophically sophisticated and novel arguments against abortion choice. The chapters in this book are divided into three thematic sections. The first set of essays focuses primarily on unborn human individuals--zygotes, embryos and fetuses. In these chapters it is argued, for example, that human organisms begin to exist (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  25. Being and Becoming Pregnant: Valuing Risks.Inmaculada de Melo-Martín - 2022 - Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 65 (2):327-336.
    Pregnant women are insistently urged to limit or eliminate risks to their fetuses. This is done even when the risks to fetuses are only theoretical or minimal, and the health and well-being of the pregnant woman is at stake. When using reproductive and reprogenetic technologies, however, evaluations about what risks are acceptable to impose on embryos change radically. In the context of these technologies, women are not only allowed to impose risks on embryos, but actively encouraged to do so-insofar as (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. Delegating gestation or ‘assisted’ reproduction?Ezio Di Nucci - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (7):454-455.
    This paper argues that we ought to distinguish between ‘assisted’ gestation and ‘delegating’ gestation—and that the relevant difference does not depend on whether it is another human or technological system doing the work.1 In the philosophy of action, there is an important theoretical gap between S ‘helping A to φ’ and S ‘φ-ing on behalf of A’: the former is an instance of joint agency while the latter is an individual’s action. This matters because if the latter counts as an (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  27. Against Ectogenesis as Liberation.Suki Finn & Sasha Isaac - 2022 - The Philosophers' Magazine 98:74-81.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  28. Shackling Pregnant Women: US Prisons, Anti-Blackness, and the Unfinished Project of American Abolition.Brady Heiner - 2022 - philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism 12 (1):1-35.
    Abstract:This article analyzes the pervasive practice in US carceral institutions of shackling incarcerated pregnant women during childbirth and postpartum. After a review of bioethical, civil, and human rights norms, which widely condemn the practice, I advance an interpretation of the social meaning of shackling imprisoned pregnant women and its persistence despite widespread normative consensus in favor of its abolition. Two arguments regarding the persistence of the practice are considered: (1) that it stems from the unthinking exportation of prison rules to (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. Shackling Pregnant Women.Brady Heiner - 2022 - philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism 12 (1-2):1-35.
    This article analyzes the pervasive practice in US carceral institutions of shackling incarcerated pregnant women during childbirth and postpartum. After a review of bioethical, civil, and human rights norms, which widely condemn the practice, I advance an interpretation of the social meaning of shackling imprisoned pregnant women and its persistence despite widespread normative consensus in favor of its abolition. Two arguments regarding the persistence of the practice are considered: that it stems from the unthinking exportation of prison rules to a (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. ‘Not birth, marriage or death, but gastrulation’: the life of a quotation in biology.Nick Hopwood - 2022 - British Journal for the History of Science 55 (1):1-26.
    This history of a statement attributed to the developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert exemplifies the making and uses of quotations in recent science. Wolpert's dictum, ‘It is not birth, marriage or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your life’, was produced in a series of international shifts of medium and scale. It originated in his vivid declaration in conversation with a non-specialist at a workshop dinner, gained its canonical form in a colleague's monograph, and was amplified (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. Consequences of the Constitutional Tribunal’s Ruling of October 22, 2020. On the Citizens’ Bill on Safe Termination of Pregnancy and Other Reproductive Rights. [REVIEW]Dariusz Kużelewski, Marta Michalczuk-Wlizło & Elżbieta Kużelewska - 2022 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 67 (1):105-125.
    The ruling of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of October 22, 2020 introduced a near-complete ban on abortion in Poland, as it removed from the law the embryopathological condition that allowed abortion when the fetus had an incurable, severe disease. The ruling raises a number of questions regarding the recognition of international protection of human rights, the equal protection status of human rights, and the principle of trust in the state. The Tribunal’s ruling resulted in massive public protests in Poland, the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  32. Framing gestation: assistance, delegation, and beyond.Ji-Young Lee - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (7):448-449.
    According to Chloe Romanis, it is worth distinguishing interventions such as surrogacy, uterus transplantation (UTx), and potentially artificial placenta technology, as falling under the genus assisted gestative technologies (AGTs) rather than the more general term assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). The proposed genus of assisted gestative technologies is a helpful first step in the endeavour to distinguish between the different ethico-legal landscapes across various ‘assisted reproductive technologies.’ Yet, if assisted gestative technologies can be considered a genus of assisted reproductive technologies, we (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  33. ‘Experimental pregnancy’ revisited.Anne Drapkin Lyerly - 2022 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 43 (4):253-266.
    In this paper, I reflect on an important article by Bob Veatch in the inaugural issue of the Hastings Center Report, entitled “Experimental Pregnancy.” It is a report and elegant analysis of the Goldzieher Study, in which nearly 400 women were randomized to receive hormonal contraception or placebo absent consent or disclosure about placebo use, resulting in several pregnancies. Noting the study’s limited notoriety, I first consider the narratives that have instead dominated bioethics’ approach to pregnancy and research: thalidomide and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  34. One or two? A Process View of pregnancy.Anne Sophie Meincke - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (5):1495-1521.
    How many individuals are present where we see a pregnant individual? Within a substance ontological framework, there are exactly two possible answers to this question. The standard answer—two individuals—is typically championed by scholars endorsing the predominant Containment View of pregnancy, according to which the foetus resides in the gestating organism like in a container. The alternative answer—one individual—has recently found support in the Parthood View, according to which the foetus is a part of the gestating organism. Here I propose a (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  35. A trans-disciplinary book on the maternal body and infant health: Sarah S. Richardson: The maternal imprint: the contested science of maternal–fetal effects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021, 376 pp, $95.00 HB. [REVIEW]Skye A. Miner - 2022 - Metascience 31 (2):215-217.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  36. Biological Individuality and the Foetus Problem.William Morgan - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (2):799-816.
    The Problem of Biological Individuality is the problem of how to count organisms. Whilst counting organisms may seem easy, the biological world is full of difficult cases such as colonial siphonophores and aspen tree groves. One of the main solutions to the Problem of Biological Individuality is the Physiological Approach. Drawing on an argument made by Eric Olson in the personal identity debate, I argue that the Physiological Approach faces a metaphysical problem - the ‘Foetus Problem’. This paper illustrates how (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  37. Biological Individuality and the Foetus Problem.William Morgan - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (2):799-816.
    The Problem of Biological Individuality is the problem of how to count organisms. Whilst counting organisms may seem easy, the biological world is full of difficult cases such as colonial siphonophores and aspen tree groves. One of the main solutions to the Problem of Biological Individuality is the Physiological Approach. Drawing on an argument made by Eric Olson in the personal identity debate, I argue that the Physiological Approach faces a metaphysical problem - the ‘Foetus Problem’. This paper illustrates how (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  38. The pregnancy compensation hypothesis, not the staying alive theory, accounts for disparate autoimmune functioning of women around the world.Erin M. O'Mara Kunz, Jackson A. Goodnight & Melissa A. Wilson - 2022 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45.
    The pregnancy compensation hypothesis provides a mechanistic explanation for the evolution of sex differences in immune system functioning, the excess of women experiencing autoimmune disease, and why this is observed only in industrialized nations; none of which can be explained by the staying alive theory, as proposed by the authors of the target article.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. Twin pregnancy, fetal reduction and the 'all or nothing problem’.Joona Räsänen - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (2):101-105.
    Fetal reduction is the practice of reducing the number of fetuses in a multiple pregnancy, such as quadruplets, to a twin or singleton pregnancy. Use of assisted reproductive technologies increases the likelihood of multiple pregnancies, and many fetal reductions are done after in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer, either because of social or health-related reasons. In this paper, I apply Joe Horton’s all or nothing problem to the ethics of fetal reduction in the case of a twin pregnancy. I argue (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  40. Your Mother Should Know: Pregnancy, the Ethics of Abortion and Knowledge through Acquaintance of Moral Value.Fiona Woollard - 2022 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 103 (3):471-492.
    An important strand in the debate on abortion focuses on the moral status of fetuses. Knowledge of the moral value of fetuses is needed to assess fetuses’ moral status. As Errol Lord argues, acquaintance plays a key role in moral and aesthetic knowledge. Many pregnant persons have acquaintance with their fetus that provides privileged access to knowledge about that fetus’ moral value. This knowledge is (a) very difficult to acquire without being pregnant and (b) relevant for assessing the moral status (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. Framing gestation: assistance, delegation, and beyond.J. Y. Lee - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (7):448-449.
    Assisted conception can be distinguished from assisted gestation.1 These processes have tended to be grouped together under the generic term assisted reproductive technology in the bioethical literature. According to Chloe Romanis, however, it is worth distinguishing interventions such as surrogacy, uterus transplantation, and potentially artificial placenta technology, as falling under the genus assisted gestative technologies. This is because gestation carries unique ethico-legal implications as compared with conception. The proposed genus of assisted gestative technologies is a helpful first step in the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. Impact of ectogenesis on the medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth.Victoria Adkins - 2021 - Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (4):239-243.
    The medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth has been encouraged by the continuing growth of technology that can be applied to the reproductive journey. Technology now has the potential to fully separate reproduction from the human body with the prospect of ectogenesis—the gestation of a fetus outside of the human body. This paper considers the issues that have been caused by the general medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth and the impact that ectogenesis may have on these existing issues. The medicalisation of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  43. Is pregnancy really a good Samaritan act?Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2021 - Christian Bioethics 27 (2):158–168.
    One of the most influential philosophical arguments in favour of the permissibility of abortion is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy, presented in ‘A Defense of Abortion’. Its appeal for pro-choice advocates lies in Thomson’s granting that the fetus is a person with equivalent moral status to any other human being, and yet demonstrating—to those who accept her reasoning—that abortion is still permissible. In her argument, Thomson draws heavily on the parable of the Good Samaritan, arguing that gestating a fetus in (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  44. The philosophy of reproduction.Suki Finn - 2021 - Think 20 (59):49-62.
    Every one of us has had some interaction with pregnancy, having been pregnant ourselves or having been the result of someone else's pregnancy. Pregnancy is a source of fascinating philosophical issues, yet has been historically underexplored. In this article, I examine why this might be, and propose how to proceed in the investigation within the context of philosophizing today.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. Methodology for the metaphysics of pregnancy.Suki Finn - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-19.
    One of the central questions in the metaphysics of pregnancy is this: Is the foetus a part of the mother? In this paper I aim not to answer this question, but rather to raise methodological concerns regarding how to approach answering it. I will outline how various areas attempt to answer whether the foetus is a part of the mother so as to demonstrate the methodological problems that each faces. My positive suggestion will be to adopt a method of reflective (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  46. Evaluating Ectogenesis via the Metaphysics of Pregnancy.Suki Finn & Sasha Isaac - 2021 - In Robbie Davis-Floyd (ed.), Birthing Techno-Sapiens: Human-Technology, Co-Evolution, and the Future of Reproduction. E-Book: Routledge: Taylor & Francis. pp. Chapter 8.
    Ectogenesis, or “artificial womb technology,” has been heralded by some, such as prominent feminist Shulamith Firestone, as a way to liberate women. In this chapter, we challenge this view by offering an alternative analysis of the technology as relying upon and perpetuating a problematic model of pregnancy which, rather than liberating women, serves to devalue them. We look to metaphysics as the abstract study of reality to elucidate how the entities in a pregnancy are related to one another. We consider (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  47. Harming one to benefit another: The paradox of autonomy and consent in maternity care.Elselijn Kingma - 2021 - Bioethics 35 (5):456-464.
    This paper critically analyses ‘the paradox of autonomy and consent in maternity care’. It argues that maternity care has certain features that increase the need for explicit attention to, and respect for, both autonomy and rigorous informed consent processes. And, moreover, that the resulting need is considerably greater than in almost all other areas of medicine. These features are as follows: (1) maternity care involves particularly socially sensitive body parts that are regularly implicated in consent‐centred procedures, as well as in (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  48. In defence of gestatelings: response to Colgrove.Elselijn Kingma - 2021 - Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (5):355-356.
    Ectogestation—that is, ‘artificial’ or extramammalian pregnancy—may soon be within technological reach. This confronts us with questions about the correct moral and legal attitude towards the subjects of this technology, which are called ‘gestatelings’. Colgrove argues that gestatelings are a kind of newborn, and consequently should have the same moral and legal protections as newborns. This paper responds that both claims are unsupported by his arguments, which equivocate on two understandings of the term ‘newborn’. Questions about the appropriate moral and legal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  49. Pregnant Females as Historical Individuals: An Insight From the Philosophy of Evo-Devo.Laura Nuño de la Rosa, Mihaela Pavličev & Arantza Etxeberria - 2021 - Frontiers in Psychology 11:572106.
    Criticisms of the “container” model of pregnancy picturing female and embryo as separate entities multiply in various philosophical and scientific contexts during the last decades. In this paper, we examine how this model underlies received views of pregnancy in evolutionary biology, in the characterization of the transition from oviparity to viviparity in mammals and in the selectionist explanations of pregnancy as an evolutionary strategy. In contrast, recent evo-devo studies on eutherian reproduction, including the role of inflammation and new maternal cell (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  50. Access to Prenatal Testing and Ethically Informed Counselling in Germany, Poland and Russia.Marcin Orzechowski, Cristian Timmermann, Katarzyna Woniak, Oxana Kosenko, Galina Lvovna Mikirtichan, Alexandr Zinovievich Lichtshangof & Florian Steger - 2021 - Journal of Personalized Medicine 11 (9):937.
    The development of new methods in the field of prenatal testing leads to an expansion of information that needs to be provided to expectant mothers. The aim of this research is to explore opinions and attitudes of gynecologists in Germany, Poland and Russia towards access to prenatal testing and diagnostics in these countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with n = 18 gynecologists in Germany, Poland and Russia. The interviews were analyzed using the methods of content analysis and thematic analysis. Visible (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 265