Registration Link: Click Here

MH Conversations and Connections Series (Contemporary Issues in Bioethics) – Webinar

How Do We Mitigate Men’s Reproductive Dependency?

Date:  23 April 2026 (Thursday)
Time:  12:30 – 1:45 pm HKT
Format: Online Webinar via Zoom

p.s. Participants who successfully register for the webinar will receive the Zoom access details two days prior to the event. A reminder email will be sent two hours before the webinar begins.

Registration Link: Click Here

Abstract:
Human reproduction is a radically unequal business. Roughly half of the human population – including all male adults – cannot gestate during their reproductive years. They must depend on someone who can gestate in order to become a parent. Consequently, they face significant disadvantages. They have little independent control over whether, when, with whom, and how often to have children (except through brutality). They often have difficulty asserting their parental identity and being privileged as a primary caregiver. They sit at the edges of the story of family life. As a matter of justice, we should mitigate these disadvantages through better-designed adoption programs, surrogacy programs, diverse family arrangements, and changed social norms. Doing these things might also better protect women and girls whose experiences of oppression so often entwine with unacknowledged efforts to redress men’s disadvantages.

Speaker:
Prof Kimberley Brownlee
Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Political & Social Philosophy
University of British Columbia.

Discussant:
Dr Olivia Ngan
Research Assistant Professor
Medical Ethics & Humanities Unit
School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed

Moderator:
Prof Carl Hildebrand
Assistant Professor
Medical Ethics & Humanities Unit
School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed

Speaker Bio:
Prof Kimberley Brownlee

Kimberley Brownlee holds the Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Political & Social Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. Previously, she was a Professor in the University of Warwick Law School and Philosophy Department. She works in moral, political, and legal philosophy. She is a Rhodes Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar, and Fulbright Fellow. She is the author of Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience (Oxford, 2012) and Being Sure of Each Other: An Essay on Social Rights and Freedoms (Oxford, 2020).

Prof Kimberley Brownlee’s profile: https://philosophy.ubc.ca/profile/kimberley-brownlee/

Welcome to join us!

Enquiry: Please contact Mr Edison Cheng (mehu@hku.hk).