International and Interdisciplinary Conference on
Communication, Medicine and Ethics
At the end of June 2024, members of The Future of Human Reproduction (FoHR) team travelled to Brescia in Italy to present at the 22nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Communication, Medicine and Ethics (COMET).
COMET is a strongly interdisciplinary conference which invites speakers and attendees from the humanities, the social sciences and healthcare contexts. Such a setting was fitting for the interdisciplinary work undertaken by the FoHR team!
The team presented a panel titled ‘Communicating reproductive futures: Ethical evaluations, terminology choices and speculations’, which began by emphasising the importance of exploring how novel reproductive technology developments are conceptualised and communicated through language choices in different contexts.
In particular, we considered the potential effects of such language choices on laypeople, medical experts and academics interested in ectogenesis (the development of fetuses outside of the human body). We argued that these choices have practical implications for how language is used to influence the public’s understanding of ectogenesis. In focussing on language choices, this panel highlighted the linguistic aspects of the work currently being undertaken on the FoHR project.
Dr Alexandra Krendel and Prof Stephen Wilkinson (on behalf of themselves, Dr Nicola Williams and Prof Elena Semino) gave the first talk of the panel titled ‘The Ethics of Ectogenesis: Corpus Linguistic Insights from YouTube Comments’, which combined perspectives from linguistics and bioethics. They discussed the extent to which different ethical considerations around ectogenesis (including reproductive rights, radical feminism, research ethics and more) are present in both the bioethics literature and the YouTube comments on two popular videos about ectogenesis.
Next, Dr Nicola Williams and Dr Laura O’Donovan presented their talk titled ‘Terminology, communication, and new reproductive technologies: Reflections on ectogenesis discourse’, which brought together perspectives from bioethics and law. They considered the terminology used to refer to the subject of ectogenesis (e.g. fetus, baby) and the technology which facilitates ectogenesis in different contexts, such as in academic and scientific discussion and in cultural representations. They then outlined the potential effects of using particular terms on the acceptance and understanding of such technology.
Dr Andrew Darby, Prof Sara Fovargue and Dr Georgia Walton then presented their talk titled ‘(Re)producing futures with other disciplines’ combining perspectives from speculative design, law and English literature. Specifically, they described how speculative design techniques were used by the FoHR team to create 12 distinct ‘design fictions’ (e.g. leaflets, posters, websites) which imagined how futures involving ectogenesis technology may look, and how different team members responded to different design fictions in a museum-style exhibit session.
The 22nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Communication, Medicine and Ethics took place at the University of Brescia from 26th-28th June 2024.