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Twilight Bioethics: Human Milk Banks
Description
Twilight Bioethics: Human Milk Banks
Breast milk is the only human substance specifically used as infant food and is rooted in gendered practices generally associated with women. In contemporary France and several other countries, donated breast milk is distributed through human milk banks. Bioethicists have examined donated breast milk from the perspective of its regulation as a tissue, often comparing it to blood donation due to its potential to carry hazardous pathogens. However, historically, breast milk has held various cultural, social, legal, and medical meanings, including as food and as an economic resource.
This session will explore different perspectives from law and social sciences regarding the regulation of breast milk—whether as "tissue," food, or something else—focusing particularly on the implications for mothers and the gendered perceptions of human milk as a multivalent substance depending on context.
With speakers Aurore Vidy (Université Paris Cité), Mathilde Cohen (Paris IAS) and Cécile Vermot (Institut SupBiotech), moderated by Benjamin Hegarty (Paris IAS).
The Twilight Bioethics Series
This series consists of three interdisciplinary events exploring how scientific and medical technologies reshape the boundaries between life and death, body and personhood—themes often anticipated in science fiction. The series delves into the "ethics of life," specifically examining emerging or evolving processes that introduce new ways to sustain life, novel reproductive possibilities, and new materials and methods for experimentation.
The development of such biotechnologies calls for ethical reflection from diverse perspectives. This series aims to foster discussions among scholars, scientists, and practitioners from various fields to consider the meaning and ethical impacts of these technologies on human and animal life.
The discussions will focus on three technologies at different stages of research and implementation: human milk banks, in vitro gametogenesis, and artificial wombs (ectogenesis). These innovations, which raise unique ethical, social, and public concerns, have the potential to radically transform aspects of reproduction and even our understanding of life itself.
Presentations will be in English, and audience questions are welcome in English or French.
Scientific committee:
Benjamin Hegarty, Paris IAS / CIUP
Anne Le Goff, Paris IAS / CIUP
Jack Turley, CIUP
Bertrand Cosson, CIUP / University of Paris Cité
Localisation
Auditorium Fondation Victor Lyon - CiuP, 29, boulevard Jourdan, 75014, Paris France