In this post I interview Fiona Woollard (University of Southampton) about her work in the philosophy of early motherhood. LB: How did you become interested in the philosophy of pregnancy and early motherhood? Can you describe your research interests in this area? FW: I’ve been interested in the ethics of abortion since I was an undergraduate. In fact, it was probably my interest in this issue that lead me to a career in philosophy. But once I became pregnant myself, I felt a strange kind of dissatisfaction with most of the existing literature on abortion. With a few notable exceptions – for example, the wonderful work of Margaret Little – the philosophical literature on abortion failed to engage at all with the messy reality of pregnancy: the blood and guts, the stretch marks and vomiting. Imagine that you were a little green alien from alpha centauri trying to learn about human reproduction from the most popular papers on abortion by analytical philosophers. What kind
A blog at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and mental health