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The Importance of Ontology for Feminist Policy-making in the Realm of Reproductive Technology1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Susan Sherwin
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Extract

In the face of rapid technological developments and growing economic pressures, governments around the world are being called upon to regulate activities in the realm of biotechnology. My aim in this paper is to argue that core conceptual insights of feminist ethics are essential to ethically adequate policy-making in this area. Specifically, I shall argue that development of ethical biotechnology require that policy-makers undergo an ontological shift from the currently widespread assumptions of the dominant political framework of liberal individualism to an explicitly feminist understanding of subjects as relational beings. To ground my discussion, I shall explore the field of reproductive technologies, especially as they are (or may soon be) used for genetic “improvements.” I shall pay particular attention to the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in conjunction with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and related variations.

Briefly, IVF, the core technology of so-called new reproductive technologies, is a platform technology that facilitates many other practices through affording access to oocytes (eggs) and embryos.

Type
IV. Political Implications of Feminist Relational Approaches
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 28: Feminist Moral Philosophy , 2002 , pp. 273 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2002

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Footnotes

1

I wish to thank all those who generously commented on earlier drafts of this paper, particularly Richmond Campbell, Sue Campbell, Jeffrey Nisker, and Jason Scott Robert.

References

2 In practice, women are often allowed some relief on the high costs of the treatment if they agree to “donate” their eggs to other women or to science. These financial incentives call into question the voluntariness of their “donations.“

3 Nisker, J. and Gore-Layton, R. E., “Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis: A Model of Progress and Concern.” Journal of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada 17 (1995): 247-61Google Scholar.

4 R. J., Boyle and J., Savulescu, “Ethics of using preimplantation genetic diagnosis to select a stem cell donor for an existing person.” British Medical Journal 323(7323) (2001): 1240-43Google Scholar. G., Pennings, R., Schots and I., Liebars, “Ethical considerations on preimplantation genetic diagnosis for HLA typing to match a future child as a donor of haematopietic stem cells to a sibling.” Human Reproduction 17 (2002): 534-38Google Scholar.

5 Religious arguments tend to become marginalized in the secularized context of Canadian policy-making. While they are respected as sincere and important to individuals, the logic of liberal individualism relegates religious conviction to the “private sphere” to be celebrated as part of the diverse cultural mosaic of the nation but an inappropriate basis for social policy. Given the conservative nature of most traditional religions and their tendency to embrace policies oppressive to women, I have no interest in challenging this response to policy arguments based solely on religious beliefs.

6 After more than ten years of reflection, including a four-year-long, multi-milliondollar Royal Commission investigation and two previous efforts at legislation that did not make it to final passage, the Canadian government recently (fall 2002) introduced legislation that will regulate reproductive technologies (Bill C-13). The government has expressed its intention of bringing this bill back to the floor of the House of Commons for final reading in the spring of 2003.

7 S., Sherwin, coordinator, Feminist Health Care Ethics Research Network. The Politics of Women's Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1998)Google Scholar. C., Mackenzie, and N., Stoljar, eds., Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

8 S. M., Wolf, “Erasing Difference: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Bioethics,” in Embodying Bioethics: Recent Feminist Advances, ed. A., Donchin and L. M., Purdy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999).Google Scholar

9 While moral theorists differ on many important matters, most of the reigning moral theories of the West treat respect for individual autonomy as foundational. For example, protection of the freedom of individual persons to pursue their own conception of the good is a core value of Kantian, rights-based, and social contract moral theories. Even utilitarians believe that respect for individual autonomy is extremely important, if only for extrinsic reasons. Oohn Stuart Mill was the author of On Liberty as well as Utilitarianism.)

10 Some theorists, e.g., Rawls, treat families or households as the basic unit of analysis at certain levels. See John, Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1971).Google ScholarThis practice carries with it a host of other concerns for feminists, as has been articulated by Susan Moller Okin. See S. M., Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (New York: Basic Books, 1989).Google Scholar

11 This is a significant demand. It appears that at present few women actually receive the level of counseling a genuine commitment to informed consent would require and that there are nowhere near the number of trained counselors available to meet the need associated with such a commitment. For a sense of the scope of the problem regarding a single genetic disease, see B., Wilfond and N.C., Fost, “The Introduction of Cystic Fibrosis Carrier Screening into Clinical Practics: Policy Considerations.” The Millbank Quarterly 70 (1992): 629.Google Scholar

12 J. A., Robertson, Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

13 S., Sherwin, No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics and Health Care (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

14 B. K. Rothman, The Tentative Pregnancy: Prenatal Diagnosis and the Future of Motherhood (New York: Viking, 1986).

15 I. M., Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

16 This does not mean that every member of an oppressed group has less power than every member of a dominant group, of course. Obviously, there are some very powerful women in society. It is that women, collectively, have less power than men collectively (and similarly, people of color have less power than white people, people with disabilities have less power than those without disabilities, and so on). Indeed, it is the relative power of groups - rather than of each individual member - that is at issue here.

17 S. Sherwin, No Longer Patient.

18 A., BaierPostures of the Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).Google Scholar

19 S., Sherwin, coordinator. Feminist Health Care Ethics Research Network; Mackenzie and Stoljar, Relational Autonomy.Google Scholar

20 Diana Tietjens, Meyers, Self, Society, and Personal Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

21 B. K., Rothman, The Tentative Pregnancy.Google ScholarA., Lippman, “Prenatal Genetic Testing and Screening: Constructing Needs and Reinforcing Inequalities,” American Journal of Law and Medicine 17 (1991): 15–50.Google ScholarS., Sherwin, “Normalizing Reproductive Technologies and the Implications for Autonomy,” in Globalizing Feminist Bioethics, ed. G., Anderson, A., Santos, and R., Tong (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001).Google Scholar

21 B. K., Rothman, The Tentative Pregnancy.Google ScholarA., Lippman, “Prenatal Genetic Testing and Screening: Constructing Needs and Reinforcing Inequalities,” American Journal of Law and Medicine 17 (1991): 15–50.Google ScholarS., Sherwin, “Normalizing Reproductive Technologies and the Implications for Autonomy,” in Globalizing Feminist Bioethics, ed. G., Anderson, A., Santos, and R., Tong (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001).Google Scholar

22 I. M. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference.

23 Ibid.