Sexual autonomy, consent, and reproductive control

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Abstract

Claims of entitlement to safe, reliable, and accessible contraception—what I will here term reproductive control—are standardly grounded in defenses of reproductive autonomy. In this chapter, I argue for an account of entitlement of reproductive control as significantly grounded in sexual autonomy. In doing so, I revisit the question of the role of consent in the ethical evaluation of sexual encounters, focusing in particular on those encounters that are of a “dual nature” in terms of being both sexual and potentially reproductive. I show that consent is an inadequate metric with which to evaluate such sexual encounters and that we need to foreground analyses of sexual autonomy in order to properly capture what is ethically salient about sex in conditions of lack of reproductive control.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Routledge handbook of philosophy of sex and sexuality
EditorsBrian D. Earp, Clare Chambers, Lori Watson
Place of PublicationNew York ; London
PublisherRoutledge, Taylor and Francis Group
Chapter17
Pages247-257
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781003286523, 9781032261010
ISBN (Print)9781138370678
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Publication series

NameRoutledge Handbooks in Philosophy
PublisherRoutledge

Keywords

  • Sexual autonomy
  • Reproduction
  • Consent
  • Sexual Justice

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