'Reproductive ethics' course gives feminist views 'special consideration'

Dartmouth College offers a reproductive ethics-themed class, which also looks to include feminist perspectives on certain topics.

The course offered “special consideration” to feminist viewpoints.

Dartmouth College offers a course on “Reproductive Ethics” that introduces feminist perspectives and gives “special consideration” to feminist viewpoints.

The class, titled “Feminist Perspectives on Reproductive Ethics,” was most recently offered during the spring semester. It focuses on numerous topics ranging from whether abortion is moral to whether it is ethical to “‘outsource’ pregnancy to Indian surrogates.”

“Does prenatal testing express a negative message about living with disability? Is there anything wrong with aiming to have a deaf child?” the course description reads. “Other issues have arisen with the commercialization and globalization of reproduction: Is there anything wrong with selling one’s reproductive labor?”

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The course description also states that, while numerous viewpoints are considered in the class, feminist viewpoints are given “special consideration” during the discussion.

The professor, Ann E. Bumpus, has researched and taught courses at Dartmouth regarding bioethics, and her areas of interest include “the commercialization of reproduction and the ethics of physician-assisted suicide.”

Campus Reform reached out to Bumpus for more information regarding the course and differing viewpoints within the class, but did not get a response in time for publication.

Dartmouth College, while not hosting the course in the fall semester, is offering new courses such as “#MeToo: Intersectionality, Hashtag Activism, and Our Lives,” which aims to examine the #MeToo movement through campus outreach activities and group work. 

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Another course being offered in the fall is “Women and the Bible,” which will study the role of women in the Bible and “look at differing ways that modern feminist biblical scholars have engaged in the enterprise of interpreting the biblical text.”

A spokeswoman for Dartmouth College declined to comment to Campus Reform regarding “Reproductive Ethics.”

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @JesseStiller3