The readings for Unit 9 focused on ethics of motherhood. In “New Reproductive Technologies: Protest Modes of Thought”, Gilbert Meilaender examines the modes of Protestant reasoning and discusses the attitudes of six Protestant theological ethicists: Janet Dickey McDowell, Paul Simmons, David H. Smith, Paul Ramsey, Joseph Fletcher, Oliver O’Donovan. It is important to note in this discussion that the standard approach of developing Protestant positions is biblical text-based and not interpretative. I belief this explains some of the variances within Protestant views of new reproductive technologies. Our other text for the unit was “Reproductive Technologies and Surrogacy: A Feminist Perspective” by Barbara Katz Rothman. The position Rothman took on reproductive technologies was reflective of her sociological background. Rothman discusses the language of the bible and modern linguistics to argue that American contemporary society is a modified patriarchy, the relationship between surrogacy and incest, the legal history of the custody of the family. The works of Meilaender and Rothman emphasize the complexity of attitudes towards artificial reproductive technologies. The complication of position arises from biblical interpretation and societal ideas of kinship, gender roles, and parenthood.
In “New Reproductive Technologies: Protest Modes of Thought,” Meilaender briefly describes various modes of Protest thought in the context of reproductive technologies. In doing so, Meilaender fails to give a full account of any reasoning. This article seems extremely open-ended. After referencing McDowell, Meilaender states, “One can also, however, use biblical themes in quite different ways and to quite different argumentative ends.” (Meilaender, 1638) Meilaender supports this statement by referencing Paul Simmons. This tactic of briefly describing different ethicists who use Protestant thought to different ends results in confusing the reader and poorly explaining the mode of rationale. Many of the positions described were shocking. For example, the argument of Paul Ramsey on human nature was surprising and thought provoking. If human nature is characterized by “limitless self-modification” (Meilaender, 1640) then how might exercises of freedom be de-humanizing? The idea of what is human is discussed in length but no conclusions are made.
In “Reproductive Technologies and Surrogacy: A Feminist Perspective”, Rothman utilizes sociology and linguistics in order to describe their feminist perspective. Rothman’s position is that they are against surrogacy because of surrogacy’s underlying theology of patriarchy. They describe various examples that support the idea that America is a modified patriarchy. In this section of the paper, it sounds as if the author takes offense to women having children in general not just reproductive technologies. Rothman makes the stance that, “It manifests itself in the language when a Mrs. John Smith bears John Smith, Jr.–women bear the children of men.” (Rothman, 1600). In modern day Western society, women typically choose whether they take their partner’s name and what to name their offspring so it seems to me that this has now become a linguistic choice that women make in this society. The concluding sentence confuses me as genetically it is true that women bear the children of men. The connections Rothman made between surrogacy and incest were surprising. Rothman states that, “Surrogacy typically raises issues about the possibilities of incest if children of surrogates are unaware of their biological lineage.” (Rothman, 1600) Genetic testing of biological lineages is not difficult and would be a useful tool in minimizing this concern. I would not assume that reproductive technologies would be administered with no counseling beforehand.
It was interesting that Rothman uses the term “begets.” They wrote, “Reading the “begets,” each man is described as having begotten his first-born son and then sons and daughters in his likeness.” (Rothman, 1600) They use this as apart of their argument of American modified patriarchy. The usage of “begets” was different in the Protestant perspective as shared by Meilaender. Meilaender wrote that, “Begetting implies a sharing of being — equality. Making implies that one is alienated from the maker.” (Meilaender, 1645) In the feministic perspective, the term is seen as an agent of patriarchy that implies that child-bearing is a duty women do for men. In the Protestant perspective, “begetting” lies at the heart of human significance as humanity is not made. This argument serves as a counterpoint to reproductive technologies as through science, children would be made.
Unit 9 has been extremely interesting and was not as I expected it would be. It is surprising to me that the feminist and (some of the) Protestant perspectives take a similar stance although the modes of thought that brought them to this position are vastly different. The argument of the same biblical term used differently in the two papers was striking. The abundance of different modes of thought in the Meilaender piece would have benefitted from a greater deconstruction, both by the author and by the reader. Rothman’s article made large generalized statements that I felt would have benefitted from appropriate sourcing. Rothman speaks of the woman’s perspective but fails to mention the importance or desire of child-bearing that is isolated away from any desire of pleasing men. Seeing infertility as a disability is an interesting idea as it implies that infertility limits a woman’s activities. Even if one argues that this activity serves the modified patriarchy, wouldn’t it be aligned with Feminist thought to allow women to utilize technologies that treat a female-specific disability?
Victoria,
I enjoyed your introduction paragraph. I think you did a good job giving direct insight into the readings for the week. Also, you mentioned the differences between this ideology and other protestant Christian views. I liked that you were critical of the reading, which not a lot of students have been up to this point.
I think the use of the statement, “women bear the children of men,” is a bit of a stretch as a feminist argument. I agree with your statement that genetically speaking, this is true. However, it is much more common now for children to be born to single women, taking the women’s last name. This is a contrast to what Katz Rothman is implying in her reading.
I liked that you compared the readings this week to each other. Meilaender and Rothman have two very different viewpoints on the matter at hand. Though, they sound similar at first glance. This would be a good tool to use when comparing other texts for the remainder of the semester. My only criticism of your post includes some simple grammatical errors that I think could be solved by slowly rereading your writing before submission.
Victoria,
I agree most with your comment that Rothman’s text would have been strengthened by sourcing. This was my biggest problem I had reading “Reproductive Technologies and Surrogacy: A Feminist Perspective.” For example, Rothman had a claim that infertility treatments involve technologies that “cause cancers in women” and can be “dangerous to the women users” (1605). Sourcing is necessary to make bold claims.
I disagree with the idea that Meilaender’s article was extremely open-ended. He was describing many controversial takes on reproductive technologies, such as Paul Simmons extrapolating biblical principles out of reproductive technology use. He honed in on specific modes of thought by adequate citations of other ethicists. I thought his format of switching to different thinkers and explaining their ideas was very representative of Protestantism, which does not confer to one ideology like the Catholic Church. In other words, there are many ways to interpret the same concept.
Both texts bring up surrogacy through the biblical story of Abraham, Sarah and Haagar (Meilaender 1687; Rothman 1992). Rothman, however, goes into detail about the story as a point to say mothers were “pretty much dismissible” and that they do not define the relationship, since it did not matter if Haagar or Sarah had the child since Abraham was the father. I thought it was interesting that Meilaendar used this same “indirectly relevant” story to point to assisted reproductive technologies occurring in the past. I wonder now how Rothman would respond to his wording and interpretation of that story.
Hi Victoria,
Thanks for your blog post this week! I think we are diving into a very complex discussion on motherhood and I liked that you were able to offer some of your opinions on the readings. I think your first paragraph could be enhance with a stronger introduction sentence that tells gives a clearer understanding of the topics this week. I think the term “ethics of motherhood” is a too broad for how specific our readings were. Also, the sentence beginning “Rothman discusses” is a little difficult to read.
I like that you mentioned that the Protestant positions are biblical text-based, however, I don’t think this necessarily means that they aren’t interpretative. As our guest lecturer mentioned earlier in the semester, any reading of such a text is necessarily an interpretation because of the reader’s implicit biases, translations, and language barriers. I understand what you were trying to say, but I think it’s good to have a degree of skepticism when reading these articles.
Overall I think you wrote a thoughtful blog post! While this week’s readings were set to be focused on motherhood, I got lost in other ethical debates about fertility, surrogacy, and feminism.
Hi Victoria,
Thank you so much for your well-written analysis of this unit’s readings.
I think your first paragraph summarizes the two readings very well in a short paragraph. I just wanted to make sure that you had a typo stating, “I belief” instead of “I believe.”
Like many other people have mentioned, I don’t think Meilaender fails to give a full account of any reasoning. You may have thought in this way since he examines different modes of Protestant reasoning through many different point of views. However, we shouldn’t say that these don’t account for interpretations nor reasoning. For example, the author states about Ramsey, “that this is not just a religious insight, but an insight into what is truly human. He seeks to defend not simply religion but true humanism.” I think this is a very well analyzed interpretation of what Ramsey suggests about parenthood. You might be right that this is open-ended, not because it lacks reasoning, but, due to many different perspectives.
As I was reading the “Reproductive Technologies and Surrogacy: A Feminist Perspective,” it made me question, “is this really written by a Feminist?” Because of her language such as “women bear the children of men,” I don’t feel like she has the full feminist mindset. Like Madison said above, many children are born to single women and takes mother’s last name. In addition, I agree that Rothman fails to mention the importance or desire of childbearing that is isolated away from any desire of pleasing men. Especially in this country.
Tori,
I thought your post was well articulated and insightful. I agree with your statement in your conclusion paragraph in that Rothman made large generalized statements that could have benefitted from sourcing. One of the claims she made that stuck out to me the most was when she said, “Men repeatedly win custody battles at much higher rates than women do” (Rothman 1603). I think this statement requires some sort of referenced statistically significant research data because she further makes use of this claim when arguing that men only desire to adopt their children as assets. Here, I found her argument even more problematic because I do not think Rothman set up any ground or provided any sort of context to assume that fathers are only interested in being apart of their children’s lives for the sake of economic stability. Although fathers may not be able to form the same bond with children as mothers do, I would still say that fathers form an emotional bond and would want custody of their children for more than financial reasons.
Personally I did not find her work here to be a pro-feminist piece, but instead thought she was driven by a more anti-patriarchal attitude. Without any sort of citations, she was only spewing opinions that better fit her personal narrative and view of the world. Although she has every right to opinion, I was left with the impression that she wanted her readers to comprehend her broad base claims as “the norm” of the world that her readers may be blind to. Without any evidence to back these claims up, I don’t feel the need to take her argument seriously.
Hi Victoria,
You did a great job comparing the two readings. You showed that Meilander and Rothman have different views on reproductive technologies in an insightful manner. The content of your introduction paragraph was solid; however, there are tiny grammatical errors that could’ve been just the slip of the finger. I also think you could have phrased “The position Rothman took on reproductive technologies was reflective of her sociological background” better. One suggestion would be to change “was reflective of” to “reflected” so it makes it less passive and your statement stronger.
I agree with you that Rothman’s article could have benefitted from appropriate sourcing. Another instance which I thought Rothman could have sourced better is when she writes: “The primacy of the genetic material is still the defining social relationship. Our society is a modified patriarchy because of this fact” (Rothman, 1602). She does not offer enough evidence to convince me that as result our society is a modified patriarchy. It felt more like an opinion piece rather than a scholarly piece.
Victoria,
I though your blog post this week was very well written and clearly communicated the important points of each reading. One thing that struck me this week was the feminist outlook on pregnancy. It seemed a little illogical to me, i’m sorry if that is offensive to anyone. I don’t really agree that the only reason women get pregnant is to have men’s children in the most negative of senses. Women get pregnant for lots of reasons and it is a bit illogical to use the fact that sperm come from men to posit that women are just “having men’s children”. You cannot have a baby without a male gamete so this argument to me seems a bit over dramatic. Women chose pregnancy, and maybe in some cases they are coerced into this decision to have children, but for the most part it is a decision the woman makes- whether that be with or without her male partner. To say that men are just controlling women and their reproductive abilities seems a tad extreme to me. In accordance with Jacquelyn’s comment I definitely agree that without citations it seems that she is just ranting on about her own personal opinion and not actually convincing anyone that she actually has agency and authority of knowledge on this topic.
Hi Victoria,
First off- I enjoyed reading your thorough response. I think you did a great job with summarizing main points of the articles in a concise manner. I appreciated your acknowledgement of the varying perspectives provided by the text; it is very important us (as informed readers) to consider not only the arguments presented in scholarly texts, but also the author’s unique vantage point (and biases) as well. As mentioned in class, when a scholar choses a distinct focal point, that aim is illuminated while all other details may become fuzzy. It is true that Rothman’s views are quite sociological in fact and this must be kept in mind with my comments to follow.
A few thoughts that came up for me while reading: On page 1601, Rothman contemplates women as vessels who simply carry and mature the seed of men to produce their children. She touches on women’s seemingly irrelevant status as contributors to reproduction. Rothman states, “…who the mother is, is not a terrifically important question (Rothman 1601).” The question of fatherhood as the most defining factor in the identity of the child as discussed in her writing. However, her conception of motherhood as minimized/unimportant in the context of biblical law, specifically Jewish law, seems a tad incomplete. As we saw in Broyde and Seeman’s texts earlier in the semester, the mother’s identity and religious background does in fact come into play with determining the identity of the child. According to halakhic law, if a surrogate mother delivered a child, the child would be considered Jewish if the birth mother was Jewish. Thus, the gestational mother’s religious status would trump the religious status of the woman who donated the ovum implanted into the surrogate mother via IVF. I wonder how Rothman’s feminist analysis of surrogacy may be further complicated by considering this specific religious affordance gestational mothers receive in the context of halakhic law.
Victoria,
I enjoyed reading your post and feel as though you did a good job of summarizing, as well as using evidence-based arguments. You interjected your argument well, and I felt as though I understood where you sat on the multitude of problems that Rothman proposed. This was a unique text written by a unique woman. Due to this, I feel as though this separated the arguments made in this text from others we have discussed.
Rather than an ethnography which is very personal but not necessarily representative, this text took a more holistic view on the issue of maternity, and I believe what made this text so unique was how pragmatic its author was. It can feel as though many texts addressing moral and ethical issues can contain idealistic thoughts. They often describe the way things should be and then lays out how things should be without discussing much of the transition. I think many of the things you find different about her arguments come from the struggle to reconcile those two different ways of thinking. I enjoyed reading this paper as well as your summary and reflection on it though, and feel as though most everything you said about it was constructive and reason based.