During Citizen Week (October 8-14), I attended a facilitated conversation at CIGI/The Balsillie School with the Honourable Ahmed D. Hussen, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship. Hussen gave a brief talk, answered some questions asked by Prof. Anna Esselment (Political Science, University of Waterloo), then answered general questions from the audience. Refugees are joining the family Given my research project on refugees and the family as a structure for political … [Read more...]
On having status
For professional and personal reasons, this week I've been thinking about what it means to have status within a political community. It just so happens that events in my personal biography have corresponded with two days calling for attention to status in various respects: Wednesday was World Refugee Day, and yesterday was National Indigenous People's Day in Canada. (I'm celebrating the latter belatedly by attending the Faculty Association's Reading Circle on Indigeneity and the University … [Read more...]
Empathy and altruism in surrogacy
Below is the text of my presentation for today's annual SMF Research Symposium hosted by the Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies department at St. Jerome's University/University of Waterloo. I post it here to facilitate better accessibility. Territorial acknowledgement I am a philosopher who primarily works in women’s and gender studies. Much of the content of my research in reproductive ethics has to do with access: Who has access to fertility? To what treatments and technologies? To … [Read more...]
Human rights and the family
When people describe their workplace or community group as if they're "like family," my neck hair rises. I am suspicious, and immediately skeptical about the stability of the organization being described. If I were a Kelpien, my threat ganglia would extend whenever someone made this kind of reference. Let me be clear: I am not anti-family. I love families! Yay families! I'm just skeptical that family structures are good models for social or political groups to adopt. Arendt's critique of … [Read more...]
The myth of a simple surrogacy
The call to better regulate surrogacy highlights the need to reduce possibilities for exploitation and other harms. Jessica Allen's experience as a surrogate reminds me that surrogacy will always be unpredictable. Yes, we need better regulation (in Canada and elsewhere). But surrogacy won't be simple. Superfetation, a rare occurrence in human pregnancy On October 25, the New York Post reported about a surrogacy that went wrong in an unexpected way: Allen conceived while gestating an embryo for … [Read more...]