Abstract
The present paper addresses the question whether and how assisted reproduction impacts parental responsibility against the background of three different perspectives: The first one is concerned with the relation between “anthropology” and “technology,” namely the fear that reproductive medicine might change our concept of humanity. Secondly, it is inquired whether it is really technology that alters the normative relationship between parents and children. Do reproductive techniques demand new or special ethical principles, or do they confront us merely with new situations, which can be subsumed under existing ethical principles? As the latter position is defended, the third part of the contribution focusses on parental responsibility in general, arguing that not the technology of assisted reproduction but parenthood as such poses unique ethical problems demanding philosophical attention. This leads back to anthropological considerations, seen from the perspective of “responsibility”. Although the paper does not make a case for virtue ethics in general, it is argued that parenthood demands virtues, namely respect, love, and responsivity.
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Notes
- 1.
Against the argument that in vitro fertilization (IVF) is “forced”, one could describe it as an attempt to copy natural processes; and as with all copies, it often fails, leading to lower success rates than natural reproduction.
- 2.
Cf. the fairness argument of John Harris (1998): Given the lax attitude towards irresponsible fertile parents, why be restrictive towards irresponsible assisted parenthood? However, the reason seems obvious: In order to control natural reproduction, a state would have to use drastic means as forced sterilization or forced abortion, well known from both totalitarian and democratic states in the past, but hardly a good model for any constitutional democracy (cf. O’Neill 2000, p. 44).
- 3.
I am grateful to John Harris who pressed me to use more empirical studies to verify my arguments.
- 4.
Habermas does not specify what counts as very serious health conditions, or, in his words “highly generalized evils”. Obviously, the vast difference between trivial traits and fatal conditions leave a wide grey area. In my understanding of Habermas, mere familial genetic disposition for serious conditions like early-onset Alzheimer’s, cancer, or depression would probably not qualify as “highly generalized evils”. If I understand him correctly, however, his point is that it is neither his nor any individual’s position to decide what qualifies as such, but a task for public discourse and the democratic process of lawmaking.
- 5.
The German association “Spenderkinder” (Donor children) fights for the right of donor children to know their genetic father or mother. Moreover, they try to locate family members like their half-siblings, cf. http://www.spenderkinder.de. An empirical study (Golombok et al. 2017, p. 324) concludes: “The earlier children born through reproductive donation are told about their biological origins, the more positive are the outcomes in terms of the quality of family relationships and psychological wellbeing at adolescence.”
- 6.
Within the framework of this paper, I cannot discuss the complex question in what way a person’s dignity might be harmed despite the fact that she autonomously consented to the donation or surrogacy.
- 7.
This does not mean that children were necessarily misregarded, badly treated or not loved by their parents in former times. For an assessment of Lloyd de Mause’s “cruelty thesis”, cf. Archard 2015, p. 25.
- 8.
It is well known that Rousseau’s own actions were in stark contrast to these claims, given that he put all of his five children into an orphanage where they almost certainly died.
- 9.
In assisted reproduction, this process is mediated by medical personnel, of course, and in some cases by the genetic material and the bodily functions of third persons.
- 10.
There are, however, positions like the US-American Children’s Liberation Movement in the 1970ies who aimed at fully emancipating and empowering children (cf. Liebel 2007, p. 23–26). Given the obvious differences between the capacities of a newborn, a toddler or a teenager, what I argue in the following only fully applies to little children and gradually changes with their age.
- 11.
In the beginning, the respect must be very generalized because we have no reason to assume individualized needs or wants of an embryo or fetus.
- 12.
In some ways, these two different attitudes mirror the two forms of recognition towards children sketched by Fichte and Hegel. I hope to elaborate this connection and the fruitfulness of their early contribution to a theory of parenthood in my future work.
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Tömmel, T.N. (2020). Reproductive Medicine and Parental Responsibility. In: Beck, B., Kühler, M. (eds) Technology, Anthropology, and Dimensions of Responsibility. Techno:Phil – Aktuelle Herausforderungen der Technikphilosophie , vol 1. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04896-7_13
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