PHIL 3780: ETHICS OF HUMAN REPRODUCTION
Fall 2013, Cabell 132
Professor John D. Arras
Graduate Assistant - Gwen Nally
THE COURSE: The focus of the course will be the exploration of various moral, legal and policy
issues posed by efforts to curtail or enhance fertility through contraception, abortion, and recent
advances in reproductive technology. Topics for discussion include:
 Recent work on abortion
 Assisted reproductive technologies (including the right to reproduce, in vitro fertilization,
contract pregnancy, and cloning)
 Conceptual analysis of coercion, commodification, exploitation, harm and responsibility as
they relate to repro ethics
 Choosing the characteristics of future offspring (e.g., prenatal diagnosis, enhancing human
traits through genetic technologies, etc.)
 Disabilities rights critique of genetic screening
 Access to assisted reproductive technologies
REQUIREMENTS: There will be two examinations and two papers. The exams will be given at midterm and finals. They will each consist of 2 in-class, closed-book essays selected from a set of 4
questions that will be distributed a week before each exam.
The first paper will be due roughly one month into the course. This will be a relatively short paper (45 pages) that will stress analytical skills and give students a good warm-up exercise for the term paper.
The term paper should consist (ideally) of a closely reasoned, well-researched philosophical argument
on a (relevant) topic of your choice. Length should fall between 10 and 15 pages. An information
sheet on the paper will be distributed separately; an optional evening session on paper writing will be
provided.
Both JDA <jda3a@virginia.edu>and Gwen Nally <egn9b@virginia.edu> stand ready to help you
develop and write your papers. Make good use of this resource by contacting us early and often!
EXAMS:
Midterm Date: October 24. Please schedule your holiday travel accordingly! (Note,
however, that both of our exams may be taken from anywhere on a computer.)
Final Exam date: Monday, Dec. 9, 2:00-4:15 PM.
GRADING:
The first (“tune up”) paper will be worth 10% of your final grade, the midterm 20%, the final exam
30%, and the term paper will be worth a total of 40% (10% for the term paper proposal and 30% for
the paper itself.) We will accept revisions of the “tune up” paper and will bump your grade if there is
significant improvement. Re-writing this first paper is optional.
Class participation can count in your favor if your grade is on the margin between grades – i.e., if
you’re between a B+ and A-, consistently good class participation can bump you up. Lack of class
participation (or counterproductive participation) would not help – i.e., if you’re on the margin, you’ll
be given the lower of the two grades. Late papers will be penalized.
LAPTOPS AND PHONES: Laptops will be permitted in this class, but only for note taking and, rarely,
for chasing down factual questions raised in discussion. Using laptops to “chat” or phones for texting
is absolutely prohibited. Failure to adhere to this policy will result in a total ban on laptops in class.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Except for a few websites and Ronald Dworkin’s book on abortion, most required readings are
contained in a Reading Packet available at N.K. Design (formerly The Copy Shop), now at #7
Elliewood next to Heartwood Books. All these readings are also posted on the course Collab website.
OFFICE HOURS: office hours with John Arras will be held in Room 5367 in Barringer Hall, Medical
School, from 11:00-12:30 Tuesdays; 1:30-3:00 Thursdays. Alternative hours available by
appointment. Drop-ins are usually welcome. Office phone: 924-7863; home phone: 970-1712.
(Barringer is in the Medical School complex just across Regular Hospital Drive, a 5 minute walk from
the Lawn. As you walk along Hospital Drive towards the Corner, Barringer is the second to last
building on the right. Look for the sign above the door that says “Barringer Wing.” Take the
elevator just inside the entrance on your right to 5th floor and take one quick left out of the elevator,
immediately take another left and walk to the end of a long corridor (entering the Center for
Biomedical Ethics and Medical Humanities), and then take another left to #5367 on your right. There
are currently two overstuffed chairs opposite my door.).
Topics and Readings:
I.
The moral and legal status of human embryos: Abortion and Stem Cell
Research
Fetal moral status and fetal rights
Bonnie Steinbock, “Why Most Abortions Are Not Wrong”
Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, "The Wrong of Abortion"
Don Marquis, “Why Abortion is Immoral”
Steinbock, sec. IV (devoted to critique of Marquis), (474 - 478 in original)
Abortion and the law
Roe v. Wade
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Erik Eckholm, “Theory on Pain is Driving Rules for Abortions”
James Rocha, “Autonomous Abortions:
The Inhibiting of Women’s Autonomy through
Legal Ultrasound Requirements”
Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion, chs. 2-6.
Focus on women’s interests and experience:
Judith Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion”
Steinbock, "Why most abortions are not wrong," Section V, (pp. 478-79 in original)
Naomi Wolf, “Our bodies, Our Souls”
Margaret Olivia Little, "The Morality of Abortion"
George and Lee, "The Wrong of Abortion" (pp. 15-19 in original)
II.
THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE AND ITS LIMITS
Christine Overall, Why Have Children?, chs. 4-5.
Overall, “Think Before You Breed”
Centers for Disease Control, “Assisted Reproductive Technology” (Available at:
http://www.cdc.gov/ART/)
John Robertson, Children of Choice, chs. 1, 2, 5
Maura Ryan, “The Argument for Unlimited Procreative Liberty: A Feminist Critique”
Onora O’Neill, “’Reproductive Autonomy’ and New Technologies”
III.
CONTESTED CONCEPTS IN REPRO ETHICS
The concept of coercion
Nancy Kates, “Buying Time: The Dollar-a-Day Program” (Kennedy School of
Government Case Study)
Stuart Taylor, Jr., “Give Norplant A Chance: Paying Poor Teenagers to Delay Child
Bearing”
Bonnie Steinbock, “The Concept of Coercion and Long-Term Contraceptives”
Paul Lauritzen, “Commodification and Coercion: The Simplest Case of IVF”
The problem of risk and the concept of harm
Ann Drapkin Lyerly et al., “Risk and the Pregnant Body”
Josephine Johnson, “Judging Octomom”
John Robertson's Children of Choice, bottom p. 29-42; 69-76
Philip G. Peters, “Harming Future Persons: Obligations to the Children of Reproductive
Technology”
IV.
ARTS II: CONTRACT PREGNANCY, COMMODIFICATION OF REPRODUCTION, AND
THE FAMILY
Cases for discussion:
In re Baby M.
Johnson v. Calvert
In re Marriage of Buzzanca (available on Collab)
K.M. v. E.G. (available on Collab)
Bonnie Steinbock, "Surrogate Motherhood as Prenatal Adoption"
Barbara Katz Rothman, “On ‘Surrogacy’”
Thomas Murray, “What Are Families For?”
R. Alta Charo, “And Baby Makes Three--or Four, or Five, or Six: Redefining the Family
After the Reprotech Revolution”
Mary Lyndon Shanley, “Lesbian Co-Mothers, Sperm Donors, and Fathers: How Many
Parents Can a Child Have?”
Elizabeth Brake, “Fatherhood and Child Support: Do Men Have a Right to Choose?”
Laurie Shrage, “Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?”
Objectification, Commodification and Exploitation in Reproduction:
Jessica Cohen, “Grade A: The Market for a Yale Woman’s Eggs”
Elizabeth Anderson, “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?”
Margaret Jane Radin, “Market-Inalienability”
“Assembling the Global Baby” (Wall St. Journal) (on Collab)
“Made in India” (recommended only, in the media center at the Clemons Library:
VIDEO.DVD14187
Alan Wertheimer, “Commercial Surrogacy” from Exploitation
Debora Spar, “The Egg Trade – Making Sense of the Market for Human Oocytes”
Steinbock, “Payment for Egg Donation”
Will Kymlicka, “Rethinking the Family” pp. 87-97 (Collab)
V.
SELECTION OF OFFSPRING CHARACTERISTICS I – PREVENTING DISABILITY
Harriet Johnson, “Unconscionable Conversations”
Amy Harmon, “Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus”
Erik Parens and Adrienne Asch, “The Disability Rights Critique of Prenatal Genetic
Testing”
Mary Ann Baily, “Why I Had Amniocentesis”
Jonathan Glover, “Disability and Genetic Choice”
VI.
SELECTION OF OFFSPRING CHARACTERISTICS II -- CLONING FOR
REPRODUCTION
President’s Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity, chs. 1, 5, 7, 8
(available at: http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/pcbe/reports/cloningreport/)
Dan Brock, “Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con”
VII.
SELECTION OF OFFSPRING CHARACTERISTICS III -- THE ENHANCEMENT OF
HUMAN TRAITS
President’s Council on Bioethics, “Beyond Therapy—General Reflections” (ch. 6 of
Beyond Therapy)
Michael Sandel, “The Case against Perfection”
Frances Kamm, “Is There a Problem with Enhancement?”
Allen Buchanan, “Human Nature and Enhancement”
Julian Salvulescu, “Procreative Beneficence”
VIII. ACCESS TO REPRODUCTIVE SERVICES
Contraception
R. Pear, “Contraceptives Stay Covered in Health Law” (NYT)
Abortion
William Saleton, “Semi-Private Womb: Selling out abortion rights for health care
reform”
Harris v. McRae
Mary Segers, “Political Discourse and Public Policy on Funding Abortion”
George Sher, “Subsidized Abortion: Moral Rights and Moral Compromise”
ARTs
Elizabeth Heitman, “Infertility as a Public Health Problem: Why Assisted Reproductive
Technologies Are Not the Answer”
Dan Brock, “Funding New Reproductive Technologies: Should They Be Included in
Health Insurance Benefit Packages?”