Bonnie Steinbock

Steinbock received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution. She now lives in Oakland, CA, with her husband, Paul Menzel. In retirement, she has been a Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. In retirement, she continues to publish, her most recent article being "Physician-Assisted Death and Severe, Treatment-Resistant Depression," Hastings Center Report 47, no. 5 (2017): 30-42. In November 2018, she delivered "The Ethics of Editing Embryos," at the National Conference of Bioethics in Shanghai, China.

Bonnie Steinbock is the author of "Life Before Birth," published by Oxford University Press in 1992. As stated in the subtitle, the book discusses the "moral and legal status of embryos and fetuses." Chapter One goes into detail about the "interest view," the idea that all and only beings who have interests have moral status. The interest view is used to distinguish whose interests we are required to take into consideration. Besides the interest view, Steinbock touched on the legal status of the fetus. From prenatal injury torts, prenatal wrongful deaths, and criminal law, Steinbock gives details about each type of legislation surrounding the fetus. Steinbock further explains consciousness and nonconcious individuals and how that relates to interests. Chapters Two through Six build on the idea that beings with interests have moral status. These chapters discuss abortion, the legal status of the fetus, maternal-fetal conflict, fetal research, and embryo research.

Bonnie Steinbock (born 1947) is a professor emerita of philosophy at the University at Albany and a specialist in bioethics who has written on topics such as abortion, end of life issues, and animal rights.