What do you see in this picture?

I'm fascinated by how pop culture shapes, and is shaped by, our society's view of bioethical issues. Here's the Mother's Day cover of the New Yorker.

It shows a woman peering gooily into a shop window, mooning over a warm and wriggling litter of--wait for it--not puppies, but diapered babies. Meanwhile, her male companion tries to drag her away from the window, eyes rolled heavenward in the universal male posture of "Not this again!"

There's a lot to unpack here, beginning with the idea that women view motherhood the same way they view a new pair of shoes; that men view women's desires to become mothers with the same exasperation as they view the shoe-buying habits some of us have; that babies are like puppies (warm, fuzzy, commodities)....

You can play too! What other assumptions and analogies are implied here?

Happy Mother's Day from the WBP

You don't have to have a child to feel like a mother, or be motherly, or motherlike or maternal. We can be mothers to our ideas, our passions, to our pets, to our extended families -- being a mom can also be about being a nurturing caregiver, a protector of life and liberty, a guardian of the weak and the fragile, and a steward of the earth and all of its living creatures.


So, from all of us at the Women's Bioethics Project, we wish you a Happy and Joyful Mother's Day!