HUMAN REPRODUCTION AND PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY: NEW THEORIES, NARRATIVES, ETHICS

Advances in reproductive technologies have profoundly altered the demarcations of parenthood. They offer a significant challenge to conventional perspectives on parental rights and responsibilities. Emergent new possibilities of biological and social parenthood raise significant ethical and social questions, and call for in-depth philosophical, bioethical and legal reflection. Anthropogenic climate change also calls for new thinking and discussion in reproductive ethics and values, inspiring contrasting views, and raises questions about population growth and human procreation on a warming planet. In this context, philosophical and bioethical debate, as well as literature, film and the arts, play a crucial role in shedding light on the complex and changing emotions and experiences of parenting, and interrogate the moral and social challenges associated with reproductive technologies. Literature and art may also draw attention to global patterns of exploitation and inequality, and bring into focus the discrepancies between political, philosophical and religious perspectives.