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Procreative Procrastination: The Ethics of Postponed Parenthood

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Preventing Age Related Fertility Loss

Abstract

In recent years, there has been growing concern over the perceived tendency of women to postpone childbearing. In this chapter, we show that some of the responses to the phenomenon of postponed reproduction are deeply problematic. The question of whether it is accurate to construe later motherhood as postponement at all is far from clear. Moreover, public health messages tend to recommend earlier motherhood as a way of avoiding risks, but this is a crude oversimplification: reproduction involves risks whenever it is undertaken. The focus on risk calls into question some of the strategies intended to remedy postponement of parenthood. There is also the question of where men feature in these decisions: they are all but absent in the public health material and media debates. We consider whether technology could offer a solution to postponement of parenthood, whether there are any benefits to postponement, and finally, whether postponed parenthood could itself be seen as part of a broader trend towards neoteny (the delaying of maturity) in human evolution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Daniela Cutas

  2. Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Daniela Cutas

  3. Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Anna Smajdor

  4. Department of Philosophy, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Kristien Hens

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  1. Daniela Cutas
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  2. Anna Smajdor
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  3. Kristien Hens
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Correspondence to Daniela Cutas .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Reproductive Medicine, UZ Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Dominic Stoop

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Cutas, D., Smajdor, A., Hens, K. (2018). Procreative Procrastination: The Ethics of Postponed Parenthood. In: Stoop, D. (eds) Preventing Age Related Fertility Loss. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14857-1_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14857-1_12

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14857-1

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