Introducing Bel Holmes: Our New PhD Student Joins TARGeT

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Hello! My name is Isabella Holmes, and I’m joining the TARGeT project team as a PhD student, writing on the theoretical aspects of autonomy in reproductive genomics. 


I have moved from Melbourne to Sydney to join Ainsley Newson and Kathryn MacKay at Sydney Health Ethics, and so far have been especially enjoying living by the beach. I have been interested in reproductive ethics since studying bioethics electives during my undergraduate degree, but it wasn’t until I was trying to choose a topic for my honours thesis that I realised how much I had enjoyed reading and writing about the roles and expectations of parents. That lead to a year-long examination of philosophical justifications of parent-child relationships. I am grateful to be able to use the skills and concepts gained through that experience and apply them to an entirely new aspect of reproductive ethics for my PhD.

 

I’m incredibility excited to join the TARGeT project, especially the prospect of exploring notions of autonomy that expand further beyond initial aspects of information-transfer and capacity for decision-making, and move to understand expectant parents as embedded and affected by their social world. Being able to participate in a bioethics project with a multi-disciplinary team means that my research may make not only a theoretical contribution, but also a practical contribution to future prenatal care. 

Being right at the beginning of a PhD is daunting, but joining the TARGeT project makes me feel fortunate to have such a relevant and novel project to jump into!

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