Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-14-2023
Publication Title
Journal of Medical Ethics
Volume
50
Issue
1
Pages
1-4
Publisher Name
BMJ
Abstract
Heloise Robinson argues that by certain threshold criteria pregnant women qualify for a higher moral status by reason of their pregnancies. While her intention is to make this a status upgrade for women we worry that it may result in a status downgrade for women as a class, by presupposing and reinforcing women’s value in relation to their reproductive labor. Historically central to feminist analysis is resistance to reductive accounts of women in relation to their reproductivity. For example, Simone de Beauvoir addressed men’s transcendence and contrasted it with women’s immanence, a status distinction possible because women are mired in expectations that they will marry, produce children, and remain in the domestic realm. For her part, Shulamith Firestone argued that biological reproduction underlies women’s inferiority to men and that “The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both [should] be replaced by…artificial reproduction.” Her concern was to liberate women from expectations of biological reproduction so their productive value in society is not reduced to their reproductive contributions. A formidable body of analysis in this same vein cautions against collapsing the value of women into their pregnancies, so much so that some even commentators withdraw ‘mothering’ from gestation.
Recommended Citation
Parks, Jennifer and Murphy, Timothy F.. Supervaluation of pregnant women is reductive of women. Journal of Medical Ethics, 50, 1: 1-4, 2023. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works, http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jme-2023-109508
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s), 2024.
Comments
© The Author(s), 2024. Reuse of this manuscript version (excluding any databases, tables, diagrams, photographs and other images or illustrative material included where a another copyright owner is identified) is permitted strictly pursuant to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. This article has been accepted for publication in Journal of Medical Ethics, 2024 following peer review, and the Version of Record can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1136/jme-2023-109508.