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    The lady vanishes: what's missing from the stem cell debate

    Dickenson, Donna (2006) The lady vanishes: what's missing from the stem cell debate. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 3 (1-2), pp. 43-54. ISSN 1176-7529.

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    Abstract

    Most opponents of somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryonic stem cell technologies base their arguments on the twin assertions that the embryo is either a human being or a potential human being, and that it is wrong to destroy a human being or potential human being in order to produce stem cell lines. Proponents’ justifications of stem cell research are more varied, but not enough to escape the charge of obsession with the status of the embryo. What unites the two warring sides in ‘the stem cell wars’ is that women are equally invisible to both: ‘the lady vanishes’. Yet the only legitimate property in the body is that which women possess in their reproductive tissue and the products of their reproductive labour. By drawing on the accepted characterisation in law of property as a bundle of rights, and on a Hegelian model of contract as mutual recognition, we can lessen the impact of the tendency to regard women and their eggs as merely receptacles and women’s reproductive labour as unimportant.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 07 Sep 2005
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:46
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/227

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