Aug 24 2023 19 mins
A bun in the oven? Eating for two? So many of our common phrases regarding pregnancy presume that pregnancy involves two distinct entities —the foetus and the maternal organism in which it resides. This sort of “container model’ of pregnancy pervades so much of our everyday discourse around pregnancy and in the academic sphere. Philosophical discussions of the ethics of maternal behaviour, for example, frequently claim that the location of a child, whether it be within the uterus, or outside is irrelevant to its ethical status. Socially, the tendency to see pregnant women as parents, with all the responsibilities that carries with it, even before they give birth is common. How justified is this view though? Does it have the sort of biological or scientific basis we might assume it to have?
Follow up references:
https://bump.group/
https://philpapers.org/rec/CLATPO-15
https://philpapers.org/rec/CLATMR-2