The best possible child

Parker, Michael

doi:10.1136/jme.2006.018176

Cited by 69 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…ii While Harris's and Savulescu's views on offspring enhancement have been vigorously attacked in recent bioethical literature (De Melo-Martín, 2004;Parker, 2007;Malmqvist, 2011;Sparrow, 2011), this elegant and powerful argument, "the moral continuum argument" as I shall call it, has not yet sustained systematic critique.…”

Section: The Moral Continuum Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive Choice, Enhancement, and the Moral Continuum Argument

Malmqvist

2013

Journal of Medicine and Philosophy

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For citing purposes, please use the final version of this article: E. Malmqvist, "Reproductive choice, enhancement, and the moral continuum argument," Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2014;39: 41-54. Abstract:It is often argued that it does not matter morally whether biomedical interventions treat or prevent diseases or enhance non-disease traits; what matters is whether and how much they promote wellbeing. Therapy and enhancement both promote wellbeing, the argument goes, so they are not morally distinct but instead continuous. I provide three reasons why this argument should be rejected when it is applied to choices concerning the genetic make-up of future people. First, it rests on too simple a conception of the badness of disease. Second, it wrongly assumes that diseaseavoidance and enhancement can proceed with similar accuracy. Third, it overlooks that disease-avoidance tends to be more urgent than enhancement from the point of view of distributive justice. While none of these reasons establishes a firm therapy-enhancement distinction, they show that a continuum model is not an attractive alternative.

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Section: The Moral Continuum Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive Choice, Enhancement, and the Moral Continuum Argument

Malmqvist

2013

Journal of Medicine and Philosophy

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“…Such views are controversial and have been rejected not only on the grounds discussed here but also on feminist grounds[2] and by rejecting the pre-eminence of procreative beneficence[8].…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…To prevent them making these decisions is to judge that they are unable to make a decision about what is best for their own lives '' ([15], p. 139). In this framework ethics is simply about choice and the avoidance of the curtailing of choice thus commodification and all other issues are irrelevant 8. This argument address what constitutes a commodity namely its lack of subjectivity, its instrumentality and its fungibility[20].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Persons and Their Parts: New Reproductive Technologies and Risks of Commodification

Widdows

2009

Health Care Anal

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This paper explores one aspect of the social implications of new reproductive technologies, namely, the impact such technologies have on our understandings of family structures and our expectations of children. In particular it considers whether the possibilities afforded by such technologies result in a more contractual and commodified understanding of children. To do this the paper outlines the possibilities afforded by NRTs and their commodificatory tendencies; second, it explores the commodification debate using the somewhat parallel example of commodification of organs; and third, in light of these debates the link between the commodification of body parts and persons is addressed. It will argue that there is a prime facie connection between body parts and persons and thus, although needing to be balanced with other ethically relevant factors, commodification remains an issue of ethical concern. Accordingly we should only be supporting potentially commodifying practices when there are ethically pressing reasons to do so (such as in organ transplantation). Moreover given this link between body part and persons we should attempt to lessen commodifying attitudes and thus should resist the increasing use of practices which regard children as having choose-able parts.

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“…The notion of "the perfect child," which is associated with that of the designer baby, is linked to a widespread belief that unbridled parental autonomy 11 will lead to reproductive programming. From this perspective, genetic diagnosis of embryos is seen as interfering with the natural order (presumed to be static) and as limiting the "open future" of every child.…”

Section: "The Perfect Child"mentioning

confidence: 99%