Constructing Maternal Responsibility: The Precarious Concept of “Maternal Care” in Behavioural Epigenetics Research
Courtney McMahon1, Monash University Melbourne 1Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Abstract
Behavioural epigenetics research is linking the degree of “maternal care” received by rat offspring to later-life stress sensitivity. Despite behavioural epigenetics studies mostly having been conducted in animals, this research is increasingly being accepted as a model for human development. This presentation investigates the ethical implications of this research for women, mothers, and pregnant people. Given the widespread association of women, and in particular mothers, with the capacity and responsibility of caring for others, how might the concept of maternal care in behavioural epigenetics uphold an ethically problematic notion of maternal responsibility? Focusing on several highly cited epigenetics studies, I examine how the concept of maternal care is discursively and experimentally constructed in behavioural epigenetics research. By obfuscating vital differences between rodent and human contexts of care, I argue that behavioural epigenetics researchers both assume and reinforce stereotypically gendered ideas about (human) mothers and their social roles. Insofar as these studies make “maternal care” a valid epistemic category, they exclusively responsibilise mothers, women, and pregnant people for the health of their offspring. This contributes to an already oppressive and stigmatising narrative of maternal responsibility that is currently emerging from epigenetics and related fields studying maternal effects, and which has the potential to inform clinical and public health approaches. I conclude with some suggested future directions for epigenetics research and how it ought to be approached and implemented by governments and health professionals.
Biography
I am a PhD student at the Monash Bioethics Centre. My thesis is focused on the ethical issues in epigenetics research and its implementation into clinical and public health approaches, specifically with regard to ideas of gender and responsibility. My research draws on both theoretical and empirical research, applying insights from feminist theory to the epigenetics discourse on maternal effects.