Global ETD Search

1	Embryo Adoption: Implications of Personhood, Marriage, and Parenthood McMillen, Brooke Marie 14 April 2008 (has links) Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / One’s personal claims regarding personhood will influence his moral belief regarding embryo adoption. In Chapter One, I consider the personhood of the human embryo. If the human embryo is a person, we are morally obligated to permit the practice of embryo adoption as an ethical means to save human persons. However, for those who do not claim that an embryo is a person at conception, embryo adoption is not a necessary practice because we have no moral obligation to protect them. There are still others who claim that personhood is gained at some point during gestation when certain mental capacities develop. I offer my own claim that consciousness and sentience as well as the potential to be self-conscious mark the beginning of personhood. Embryo adoption raises several questions surrounding the institution of marriage. Due to its untraditional method of procreation, embryo adoption calls into question the role of procreation within marriage. In Chapter Two, I explore the nature of the marriage relationship by offering Lisa Cahill’s definition of marriage which involves both a spiritual and physical dimension, and then I describe the concept of marriage from different perspectives including a social, religious, and a personal perspective. From a personal perspective, I explore the relationship between marriage and friendship. Finally, I describe how the concept of marriage is understood today and explore the advantages to being married as opposed to the advantages of being single. Embryo adoption changes the way we customarily think about procreation within a family because in embryo adoption, couples are seeking an embryo from another union to be implanted into the woman. This prompts some philosophers to argue that embryo adoption violates the marriage relationship. In Chapter Three, I further consider the impact of embryo adoption on the family as an extension of the marital relationship as well as the impact of embryo adoption on the traditional roles of motherhood and fatherhood. I examine motherhood by looking at how some philosophers define motherhood and when these philosophers claim a woman becomes a mother. After considering these issues regarding motherhood, I examine the same issues surrounding fatherhood. Peg Brand, PhD., Chair Embryo adoption Embryo rescue Embryo Adoption Rescue Motherhood Fatherhood Marriage Personhood Gestation Conception Reproductive technology Reproduction Surrogacy Conscious Consciousness Sentience Person Self-conscious Self-consciousness Procreation Conjugal union Marriage relationship Procreate Pregnancy Genetic motherhood Gestational motherhood Social motherhood Genetic father Social father Mother Motherhood Father Fatherhood IVF In vitro In vitro fertilization Pregnancy Postnatal adoption Althaus Aquinas Conee Crosby DeGrazia Finnis Ford Locke Lovering McMahan Parfit Quinn Singer Sumner Thomson Tooley Warren Cahill Moller Landau Mill Catholic Lutheran Calvinist Calvinism Aristotle Catholicism Kant Parsons Primoratz Feldman Firestone Tonti-Filippini Watt Geach Human embryo -- Transplantation Adoption -- Religious aspects Motherhood Fatherhood Marriage

Search results

Embryo Adoption: Implications of Personhood, Marriage, and Parenthood