Dr Rhonda Shaw
Rhonda is a "Foundation for Research on Science & Technology" Post-Doctoral Fellow. Rhonda's research is located in the cultural sociology of moral relationships and she is currently engaged in a project on ethics and embodiment. Her most recent publications are: 'Theorising Breastfeeding: Body Ethics, Maternal Generosity and the Gift Relation', Body & Society (June 2003), Vol. 9, No. 2; 'Our Bodies Ourselves, Technology & Questions of Ethics: Cyberfeminism & the Lived Body', Australian Feminist Studies (March 2003), Vol. 18, No. 40: 45-55; and 'The ethics of the birth plan in childbirth management practices', Feminist Theory (August 2002), Vol. 3, No. 2: 131-149.
Ethics and the Genetic Refashioning of the Future Body'.
The refashioning, reconstruction, and redesign of the human body through the application of new scientific and medical technologies is now a familiar subject in the media and in contemporary culture. It is also a familiar subject for social analysis. In this rapidly expanding body of work, social and cultural theorists have been quick to note the appearance of a continuum of body transforming techniques from the aesthetic manipulation of the body's surface in body adornment and body sculpting through to fundamental alterations and enhancements of the inner body. This paper addresses these debates about body refashioning by focusing on the ethics of genetic therapies that are designed with a view to repair or enhance the bodies of future persons.
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