Title: Reproducing persons : issues in feminist bioethics /
Authors: Purdy, Laura Martha.
Publisher: Cornell University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: Human reproductive technology Moral and ethical aspects; Abortion Moral and ethical aspects; Feminist ethics; Bioethics; Feminist theory.; Abortion, Induced; Reproductive Techniques; Bioethics; Women's Rights
Abstract: Controversies about abortion and women's reproductive technologies often seem to reflect personal experience, religious commitment, or emotional response. Laura M. Purdy believes, however, that coherent ethical principles are implicit in these controversies and that feminist bioethics can help clarify the conflicts of interest which often figure in human reproduction. As she defines the underlying issues, Purdy emphasizes the importance of taking women's interests fully into account. Reproducing Persons first explores the rights and duties connected with conception and pregnancy. Purdy asks whether conceiving a child or taking a pregnancy to term can ever be morally wrong. She challenges the thinking of those who feel the prospect of disability or serious genetic disease should not constrain conception or justify abortion.
Contents: pt. I. The Right to Reproduce: Limits and Caveats. 1. Genetics and Reproductive Risk: Can Having Children Be Immoral? 2. Loving Future People. 3. What Can Progress in Reproductive Technology Mean for Women? 4. Are Pregnant Women Fetal Containers? -- pt. II. Abortion and the Right Not to Reproduce. 5. Is Abortion Murder? / Laura M. Purdy and Michael Tooley. 6. Abortion, Potentiality, and Conferred Claims: A Response to Langerak. 7. Abortion and the Argument from Convenience. 8. Abortion, Forced Labor, and War. 9. Abortion and the Husband's Rights: A Reply to Teo -- pt. III. New Worlds: Collaborative Reproduction. 10. The Morality of New Reproductive Technologies. 11. Surrogate Mothering: Exploitation or Empowerment? 12. Another Look at Contract Pregnancy. 13. Children of Choice: Whose Children? At What Cost?