Against epigenetic responsibility: The problem of causality in 'foetal programming' science.
Emerging evidence that intrauterine exposures to environmental stressors can 'programme' epigenetic modifications in offspring, leading to long‐lasting health risks, has generated debate about whether prospective mothers have a specific 'epigenetic' moral responsibility. However, to date, proposals...
| Publicado en: | Bioethics Vol. 39; no. 1; pp. 127 - 137 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Jan2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=181778744&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 181778744 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02699702 6PJ jtl: Bioethics issn: 02699702 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jan2025 vid: 39 iid: 1 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 181778744 10.1111/bioe.13350 ppf: 127 ppct: 10 formats: tig: atl: Against epigenetic responsibility: The problem of causality in 'foetal programming' science. aug: au: McMahon, Courtney Mills, Catherine affil: Faculty of Arts, Monash Bioethics Centre, Monash University, Clayton Victoria, , Australia su: Uncertainty Bioethics Alcohol drinking Pregnancy Prenatal exposure delayed effects Epigenomics Pregnancy outcomes DNA methylation Causality (Physics) Environmental exposure Fetal development sug: subj: Uncertainty Bioethics Alcohol drinking Pregnancy Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology) Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) Prenatal exposure delayed effects Epigenomics Pregnancy outcomes DNA methylation Causality (Physics) Environmental exposure Fetal development keyword: causality epigenetic responsibility epigenetics foetal programming maternal responsibility causality epigenetic responsibility epigenetics foetal programming maternal responsibility ab: Emerging evidence that intrauterine exposures to environmental stressors can 'programme' epigenetic modifications in offspring, leading to long‐lasting health risks, has generated debate about whether prospective mothers have a specific 'epigenetic' moral responsibility. However, to date, proposals for maternal epigenetic responsibility have failed to grapple adequately with the uncertainty of scientific evidence, and specifically, whether the causal basis for intrauterine epigenetic effects is sufficiently established to ground claims of moral responsibility. Causality is widely considered a necessary condition for the attribution of moral responsibility. In this paper, we show that much foetal programming science in humans has yet to establish a causal epigenetic connection between intrauterine exposures and subsequent offspring health impacts. This research struggles to establish that the relationship between such exposures and offspring health risks is in fact causal, neither has it been able to evince the causal significance of exposures during pregnancy to such outcomes. We argue that these two challenges to establishing causality in foetal programming research seriously undercut the idea that prospective mothers may have a moral responsibility to ensure the epigenetics of their offspring. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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