Procreative Futures. Ethics and Politics of Human ‘Coming to the World’

From the birth of Louise Brown (1978) to today, biotechnology and the expansion of individual freedom and rights have brought about profound changes in the human reproduction scenario, altering the boundary between chance and choice, and questioning the moral relevance of the natural/artificial conceptual pair. Moreover, these processes fostered a redefinition of the meaning and construction of personal and social relationships and reproductive choices. On a philosophical level, rethinking of concepts such as 'family', 'parenthood', 'motherhood', 'person' and reflecting on the rights, duties, and responsibilities of the actors involved have proved necessary.
At the same time, research on new forms of technological reproduction and surrogate parenting has reignited the feminist debate – which has always reflected on the question of motherhood and its (bio)politics – by reactivating the polarized alternative between the right to self-determination and the risk of exploitation or oppression: rather than this polarity itself, the present issue of Humana.Mente aims at exploring and evaluating the problems and views that lie between the extremes of this polarity.
The aim of this issue is to build an analysis of the ontological, experiential, ethical, and legal aspects of this complex set of topics. We welcome papers from various philosophical views, ranging from more traditional works in applied ethics to approaches that in recent years have enriched the debate and highlighted new perspectives, such as phenomenology and feminism.

The following topics are accepted for submission, but papers on philosophical topics not on the list but related to reproduction ethics will also be considered:

- natural and artificial reproduction in humans
- the moral status of possible people
- ontology and phenomenology of pregnancy
- surrogate motherhood
- artificial womb
- the creation of synthetic embryos
- genomic editing for therapeutical or enhancing aims
- (cyber)feminist approaches and positionings to surrogate and artificial motherhood
- motherhood and patriarchy in bio-technological contexts
- medicalization and pathologization of (surrogate) motherhood

NEW deadline for submissions: 30 APRIL 2024