Melanie Dössegger is an adjunct researcher in the URPP Human Reproduction Reloaded │ H2R at the University of Zurich.

Melanie’s research interests include philosophy of science, political philosophy, and applied ethics, in particular biomedical ethics, family ethics, feminist ethics, and philosophy of family law. Her PhD project focuses on the right to parent and children's rights.

Project: Parenthood as a project - And why biology cannot justify parental rights
Raising children involves a high degree of authority of some autonomous persons over a (so far) non-autonomous person, an authority we generally only accept if it is in the interest of the non-autonomous person. However, if we justify parental rights in terms of children's interests alone, we cannot explain why we infringe on parents' rights when we redistribute children to the best-possible parents after birth. In my research, I clarify in whose interests parental rights lie, how parents acquire those rights and justify how broad the scope of these rights ought to be. My thesis is that parenthood is a weighty life-project to many people and therefore they have a fundamental, but conditional and limited right to initiate and continue this project. The advantage of such a liberal conception of parenthood would be that the concept is not based on bio-normative ideas of the "real" family, it morally equates fatherhood and motherhood and gives moral recognition to diverse family forms.

Education

• Master of Arts in Philosophy and Sociology (2020)
• Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science (2017)