Rachel Warren Miss, Doctoral Candidate - The University of Manchester |
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02.02.2015-27.02.2015
Virtuous Parents: A Virtue Ethics Approach to Reproductive Ethics and Law.
The primary objective of my stay at the Brocher foundation will be to write a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed journal that will also form a part of my PhD thesis (this will be the third paper written which will contribute to my PhD). The paper is entitled 'Can virtue ethics contribute to reproductive law and regulatory policy? If so, how?' In this paper, I consider if and how virtue ethics can apply to reproductive law and policy, to determine how reproductive medicine should be regulated. I consider whether policy should enforce virtue. I evaluate the ethical grounds for current UK law and policy, and whether an appeal to virtue ethics or politics can overcome the non-identity problem with the harm-focused child welfare clause (s.13.5 as amended) in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, and help solve issues with policies for access to, and the use of, assisted reproductive technologies. I argue that the current law's preoccupation with child welfare really concerns parental aptitude, which can be better addressed by virtue ethics. I will investigate which jurisprudential approaches can best capture the insights of virtue ethics, drawing upon virtue politics, virtue jurisprudence and feminist perspectives. I demonstrate what a policy informed by virtue ethics would be like.