Papers by Kimberly Leighton
The American Journal of Bioethics, 2013
Hypatia, 2010
Cressida Heyes (2007) has written a very interesting book that intervenes in several different di... more Cressida Heyes (2007) has written a very interesting book that intervenes in several different discourses, both academic and popular: feminist philosophy and its unspoken norms; scholarly receptions of Foucault's work, particularly his revisioning of Kantian ethics; and dominant, ...
This dissertation claims that the problem of self-knowledge involves a kind of splitting of the m... more This dissertation claims that the problem of self-knowledge involves a kind of splitting of the mind or self into a knower and a known, a subject and an object of knowledge. As modern philosophy becomes concerned with the project of certainty, its turn toward the self renders this splitting ...
An increasing number of children are adopted in the United States from countries where both medic... more An increasing number of children are adopted in the United States from countries where both medical care and environmental conditions are extremely poor. In response to worries about the accuracy of medical histories, prospective adoptive parents increasingly request genetic testing of children prior to adoption. Though a general consensus on the ethics of pre-adoption genetic testing (PAGT) argues against permitting genetic testing on children available for adoption that is not also permitted for children in general, a view gaining traction argues for expanding the tests permitted. The reasoning behind this view is that the State has a duty to provide a child with parents who are the best " match, " and thus all information that advances this end should be obtained. While the matching argument aims to promote the best interests of children, I show how it rests on the claim that what is in the best interests of children available for adoption is for prospective adop-tive parents to have their genetic preferences satisfied such that the " genetics " of the children they end up adopting accurately reflects those preferences. Instead of protecting a vulnerable population, I conclude, PAGT contributes to the risks of harm such children face as it encourages people with strong genetic preferences to adopt children whose genetic backgrounds will always be uncertain.
A commentary on an article published by bioethicist Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, this paper argues ... more A commentary on an article published by bioethicist Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, this paper argues that Melo-Martin's criticism does not go far enough. Rather than address the essential assumption at the heart of so-called 'right to know' claims, her paper focuses on the lack of empirical evidence to support consequentilist-based calls to end anonymous gamete donation (AGD). Only by unearthing the harm of this purported rights-based approach, I offer, can we recognize both the logical failure and the moral risk of advocating 'right to know' arguments against AGD.
A prism reflecting cultural assumptions about reproduction, identity, gender, and race, adoption ... more A prism reflecting cultural assumptions about reproduction, identity, gender, and race, adoption as a practice of family-making prompts us to examine assumptions about what is normal and good, who is related, and how we should create—and not create—children. To unpack and address ethical concerns about adoption—including whether and to what extent adoption is morally permissible—requires investigating three aspects of adoption together: the interests and needs of children; the social and material conditions under which adoption becomes a possible—or even, necessary—practice in contexts both domestic and international; and the multiple ways adoption is valued and denigrated as a mode of family-making. When analyzed in relation to one another, these issues set the stage for problematizing a view the truth of which to many seems simply obvious: adoption, as a form of family-making for adults, is an option of last resort when sexual reproduction—and for those who can afford it, assisted reproductive technologies—have failed to deliver a child of ‘one’s own’.
The 10-year anniversary of the decoding of the human genome arrived this year with more of a whim... more The 10-year anniversary of the decoding of the human genome arrived this year with more of a whimper than a bang. What seemed a decade ago to be the infinite and prophetic potential of genomic science -to tell us who we are, where we came from, what diseases we will get, when we will die -has been brought down to earth with a gentle, if realistic, thud. Despite the uncertainties about the medical usefulness of genomic information, many of the ethical discussions about genetics and genetic testing continue to be driven by the idea that to know genetic information about oneself has particular moral value. This idea has been especially apparent in discussions about the ethics of anonymous gamete donation, where the information at issue concerns not the genes one carries, but the sources from which those genes are thought to have come. Some have even argued that access to such information should be protected as a right.
Arguments in bioethics based on a purported right to know one's genetic ancestry are playing an i... more Arguments in bioethics based on a purported right to know one's genetic ancestry are playing an increasingly important role in debates about the ethics of reproductive medicine. In discussions of donor-assisted conception, a ‗right to know' has been invoked to capture the harm of anonymous gamete donation (AGD). Defenders of the view that someone who was donorconceived has a right to identifying information about the donor(s) commonly invoke an analogy to adoption to support their argument. This chapter challenges the basic claim of the analogy: that adoption and its effects on people who were adopted can provide a -lesson‖ on how information should be handled in donor-assisted conception. I question the underlying assumption that the meaning of and desire for information in both cases is morally equivalent, and criticize how arguments based on the analogy ultimately use adoption to show the value of genetic relatedness. To support right to know arguments the analogy must geneticize adoption by rendering what it means to know or not know one's origins in adoption in specifically genetic terms. I argue that the consequences of this geneticization are harmful to adoptees and reflect the bionormative view that families should be genetically related.
Although much can and should be made of the interventions Cressida Heyes's new book Self-Transfor... more Although much can and should be made of the interventions Cressida Heyes's new book Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies (2007) offers to debates in Foucault studies, feminist theory, and gender studies, I want to stress here the important contribution Heyes's book makes as a work of ethics. Her project provides an instructive and elegant example of what it is to engage in an ethical inquiry that takes seriously the productive relationship among ethical norms, lived lives, and practices of moral judgment. If Daniel Callahan is right that ''ethics cannot be ethics at all unless it offers some guidance in knowing how to identify an ethical problem'' (Callahan 1999, 289), then Self-Transformations goes far to advance what is at ethics' core. Moreover, as a work in metaethics, Heyes's project and the methodology she undertakes in it provide the means for judging the adequacy of ethical theories themselves.
Ever since I can remember, I have been someone who identified herself as adopted. I have, in fact... more Ever since I can remember, I have been someone who identified herself as adopted. I have, in fact, always had a difficult time answering the common questions of when and how I was told about my adoption, as my memories of and stories about being myself have always included my being adopted. It was as if coming into my own self-knowledge included, and perhaps was even constituted in relationship to, the knowledge that my parents were not always my parents and that I was born, as I later came to think, before they knew that I existed. My claiming of "being adopted" as an identity has thus included claiming the contingency and ambiguity such a grammatically awkward statement involves. The meaning of my self, of who I was, I thought, could always have been different. That my parents were my parents was accidental, while the fact that they could be (and hence might not have been) my parents was determinative to who I was. While being raised by my parents from infancy certainly affected many aspects of my identity-formation, including my understandings of myself through religion, class, race, and ethnicity, my identity as adopted was produced by the fact that these identifications could have been different. They were, in short, constitutively arbitrary. 1 1. As this essay reflects the support and suggestions of many, I want to thank the following people for their thoughtful responses to earlier drafts:
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Papers by Kimberly Leighton