Topic 2 Flashcards
15) What are the main means to promote procreative liberty?
This can be achieved by:
1. Contraception, sterilization, or termination of pregnancy ( abortion)
2. Assisted reproduction ( IVF, etc)
3. Genomic or other testing of embryo or fetus for disease or non-disease states
16) Describe the main account of procreative choice (procreative autonomy, procreative beneficence, the interests of the future child, the interests of the state, preserving life).
Procreative autonomy: emphasis on the value or rights of adults to make their own reproductive choices. The state or professional interference should be kept to a minimum and exercised only in extreme situations.
Procreative beneficence: couples have a moral obligation to make reproductive choices that will maximize the welfare of children they conceive. Parents should select the best child of the possible children they could have
Interests of the future child: if not conceived, the child would not be born. Therefore, it’s in the interests of that child to be born
Interests of the State: reproductive choices affect the composition of the future populations. The state, therefore, has an interest in our reproductive choices. Some choices may be very costly for society.
Preserving life: reproductive choice should not be enabled through killing an already existing fetus or embryo
17) Describe the main accounts of moral status of embryo (identity as a human organism, the potential to be a person, identity as a person, conferred status). What are the most important shortcomings of each account?
Identity as a human organism: there are no good reasons to accord different moral status to human beings at different stages in its development. Throughout the cycle of life, it is the same being or entity, the moral status of being stays the same. Therefore, if it is wrong to kill the child, it is wrong to kill the fetus. Moment embryos attain full moral status as conception. An individual cannot be said to exist until the potential of twinning is lost.
The potential to be a person: killing an embryo is killing a potential child. ‘future of value’ argument: killing a person is wrong because it’s cutting short a valuable future.
Identity as person: moral status of embryo depends on its actual properties. It’s wrong to kill a person but an embryo is not a person. What determines the stage during development when a human organism becomes a person? Being a person must involve some degree of consciousness - ability to feel pain, etc (24 weeks). Being a person must involve self- consciousness - a creature’s ability to reflect on its own mental states, to be aware of itself as a being with past, present and future, etc. Killing a self-conscious being is wrong because it involves frustration of desires that the being has for its own future.
Conferred Status: moral states need not be based only on intrinsic properties of an entity but can be conferred by others. At birth, the infant takes on an important social role and that justifies conferring moral status. Therefore, a strong prohibition on killing infants is justified and because the fetus has not yet been accepted as a member of society, nor granted social standing, it would be acceptable to terminate pregnancy
Shortcomings
Identity of human organism: implies that killing one cell or few cells is as bad as killing a 10 year old child and that post-coital contraception is wrong
Potential to be a person: contraception and sexual abstinence is wrong
Indentify as a person: infants are not self-conscious. Does that mean that infanticide doesn’t
differ from abortion? There is no consensus about what features characterize a person. Conferred
Status: justifies our intuitions about wrongness of killing infants, but for seemingly wrong reasons.
18) What social values promote assisted reproduction?
- Need to have one’s own bio children
- Women feel unfulfilled unless they have kids
19) What are the main objections against the use of assisted reproduction?
Conservative:
* AR separates sex and reproduction
* AR radically alters traditional relationship
Feminist:
* AR will reinforce and promote sexism
* Adds to men’s power over women
20) What is AID? What are the main ethical issues raised by the use of this technology?
AID- Artificial Insemination Donor (sperm donation) - Placing sperm obtained from donor in uterus
Negative
- Non-traditional way to have kids, does it affect? May lead to secrecy and lies
- Sperm can be donated at home, not checked for diseases like aids
- Genetic diseases could harm either
woman or children - Sperm donation is anonymity, but does the kid has the right to know about its biological parents
- Physicians have been caught using their own sperm without consent.
- Parents can select children who meet certain criteria, such as freedom from genetic diseases or being a particular sex (not as good as with IVF, but still some possibilities)
- Men might feel less attached to their children because they are not biological offspring
Positive
- For single woman and lesbians
- Parents who fail to conceive can get pregnant
21) What is IVF? What are the main ethical issues raised by the use of this technology?
IVF: in vitro fertilization
- fertility treatment in which sperm and eggs are combined in a laboratory outside the body, in vitro.
fertilised egg + a few cell multiplications → inserted back into the woman’s uterus - way how to detour around blocked or damaged fallopian tubes (uterus tubes)
- major treatment for infertility when other methods of assisted reproductive technology
have failed.
Ethical: - costs a lot, some countries cover it by insurance system
- risky for woman to extract egg
- if an embryo has defect, its discarded (murder?)
- risk for ectopic pregnancy (foetus develop outside the uterus)
- can be both physically and mentally hard on woman, since many that try to give birth
by IVF do not achieve this goal - overpopulation?
22) What is surrogacy? What are the main ethical issues raised by the use of this technology? What is your opinion on this issue?
A woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person
A fertilized egg is placed in another womans body for further development and birth, and then belongs to the biological parents
Can also use their own eggs
Ethical:
- Emotionally difficult
- Using the woman’s own egg makes it easier to claim the right of the child -
- Questions like who is the real mother? Genetic and social aspects?
- Legal rights to the child is not well protected, for example in a divorce
- The child may have psychological and emotional problems (not feeling normal)
- Promotes baby-selling
- Psychological effect on the surrogate mother
- Promotes the idea that the woman is the baby maker
- Poor women will be employed and may accept the contract even though the risks
- Promotes pronatalism- you need a child to have true quality of life
Concerns regarding the contract:
* Who does the child really belong to?
* If a baby is abnormal in any way, is anyone obligated to take care of it?
* Unsuccessful birth, should the surrogate mom be paid?
* Poor women accept the contract even if they put themselves in risk
My opinion: problematic topic, good option for couples who can’t make children themselves, but may cause the surrogate mother some problems. Important with good information about problems and legal issues.
23) What are the main ethical issues raised by pre-birth testing?
Aim is to detect birth defects like downs, fragile x syndrome, or detect the sex
Ethical issues:
- prevent a disease is to prevent the birth
- Discrimination against people with disease (life with disease or disability is not worth living)
- is it as wrong to kill foetus as it is to kill born persons? Moral question about abortion
- tests may yield false or inexact results
- selection against characteristics promoting designer babies
- children have right to an open future, own liberties or conceptions of the good that are not intentionally limited by decisions and preferences of others
- may reveal more information than wanted
Positive:
- quality of life
- unnecessary suffering
- life is better without diseases so why should we not prevent them
24) What are the main technologies of sex selection? What are the main arguments against sex selection?
Sex selection: attempt to control the sex of the offspring to achieve a desired sex.
Technologies:
Infanticide:
* simplest, most effective, most morally problematic form of sex selection
- Killing of undesired sex after birth
Prenatal diagnosis and abortion:
* determining sex of the child and then abort the foetus if its not desired sex
- Prevalent in India, China where male as first child has high value
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and embryo selection:
* examination of the in-vitro fertilised embryo before implantation in the uterus
- Can test for genetic abnormalities and determining of the sex
Sperm sorting
* before fertilisation, by whether they are X chromosome bearing or Y chromosome bearing
- If this is done successfully, then the sperm can be used in artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization to help ensure that any resulting child will be of the desired sex.
Main arguments against sex selection:
1. Sex-ration imbalance- often valued to have males as first child
- Sexist motivation- preference for males over females is a manifestation of sexism
