Abstract
Taken together, Chapters 2 and 3 delve into the broad range of ethical issues surrounding the use of PGD. They are organized by broad questions such as “Should we be doing this at all?” and “What is a life worth living?” In Chapter 2, we discuss a number of general criticisms and defenses of the desire for control and choice that biotechnology generally and PGD in particular raise. We also begin to discuss a range of uses of PGD, including the avoidance of late onset genetic disease, positive selection for disabling conditions such as short stature or deafness, and sex selection. Relevant philosophical concepts and lines of ethical argument are discussed, such as the “expressivist” argument on selecting against a disability and the “non-identity problem” of harming an entity that would not otherwise exist if the putatively harmful action were not taken.
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Notes
See, for example: Wilkinson, Stephen. Choosing Tomorrow’s Children: The Ethics of Selective Reproduction. Oxford, England: Clarendon, 2010;
Scott, Rosamund. Choosing between Possible Lives. Oxford: Hart, 2007.
Robertson, John. “Assisting Reproduction, Choosing Genes and the Scope of Reproductive Autonomy.” The George Washington Law Review 76.6 (2008): 1490–1513.
Savulescu, Julian. “Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children.” Bioethics 15.5–6 (2001): 413–426.
Hughes, James. Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future. Cambridge, MA: Westview, 2004.
Harris, John. Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2007. We will focus on Savulescu’s views in this section because they are neatly presented, directly relevant to genetic selection, and in many ways representative of prominent ideas in the secular bioethics community. Savulescu’s ideas on procreative autonomy, which will be discussed later, do represent an extreme pro-enhancement position. However, the comparison of Savulescu’s and Sandel’s views is meant to illustrate the spectrum from liberal to conservative views on the use of technology such as PGD for genetic enhancement purposes.
Baruch, Susannah. “PGD: Genetic Testing of Embryos in the United States.” JRC European Commission. Johns Hopkins University, February 15, 2009. Web. January 26, 2014.
Sandel, Michael J. The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2007. Page 27.
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Egnew, Thomas. “The Meaning of Healing: Transcending Suffering.” Annals of Family Medicine 3.3 (2005): 255–262.
See also Thomas Murray’s discussion of “Perfectibilism and Parenthood,” in The Worth of a Child. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Pages 131–137.
Lang, Joshua. “What Happens to Women Who Are Denied Abortions?” The New York Times, June 12, 2013. Web. February 22, 2014.
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Buchanan, Allen E., Dan W. Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler. From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2000. Page 23.
Feinberg, Joel. “The Child’s Right to an Open Future.” Whose Child? Children’s Rights, Parental Authority, and State Power. Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams &, 1980.124–153;
Davis, Dena. “Genetic Dilemmas and the Child’s Right to an Open Future.” The Hastings Center Report 27.2 (1997): 7–15.
Fallon, Jr Richard H. “Two Senses of Autonomy.” Stanford Law Review 46.4 (1994): 875–905;
Christman, John. “Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, July 28, 2003. Web. February 21, 2014.
Malek, Janet, and Judith Daar. “The Case for a Parental Duty to Use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for Medical Benefit.” The American Journal of Bioethics 12.4 (2012): 3–11.
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© 2015 Michelle Bayefsky and Bruce Jennings
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Bayefsky, M., Jennings, B. (2015). The Ethics of PGD and Its Relevance to Regulation. In: Regulating Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis in the United States: The Limits of Unlimited Selection. Palgrave Series in Bioethics and Public Policy. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137515445_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137515445_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, New York
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