Chapter 13 :Reproduction: Assistance and Control Issues |
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Section 3. Presentation of Issues. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Outline
for Chapter 9 :
Munson, Ronald. INTERVENTION AND
REFLECTION . 6th
ED.,Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2000.
CASE PRESENTATIONS: Cloning: Genetic Duplicates Not Safe and Not Right??? VIDEOS: Human cloning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbxN5uwaqA Test Tube Baby: external fertilization and implantation Multiple pregnancies: Fertility drugs - risk of abnormalities and deaths selective reduction: Therapy or evil? Postmenopausal Motherhood: Sex bias or physical threats to woman and child New Data: Older Fathers-sperm is now linked to defects in children, including shizophrenia Embryos in Court: Who owns embryos? Does sperm source/egg source have a right not to be a father/mother? Father shopping: Sperm by Mail - catalogue of sperm source- shipment by mail Mother Shopping: Eggs by Internet - website with photos of egg source- shipment by mail Surrogate Pregnancy: Buying and selling a baby? Gestational Surrogate Changes her Mind: Whose baby is it? INTRODUCTION: ASSISTED REPRODUCTION: IVF, GIFT, ZIFT and other techniques IVF: in vitro fertilization GIFT: gamete intrafallopian transfer ZIFT: zygote intrafallopian transfer ULER: uterine lavage embryo retrieval PZD: partial zonal dissection ICSI: intracytoplasmic sperm injection Need : 10% of US women are infertile, 4 million men are infertile Success rates: 24% of women treated get pregnant, 78% result in live births Costs:$10,000-$100,000, over $2 billion each year in USA Multiple Births: risk of miscarriage, defective children Freezing Embryos: > 25,000 / year are frozen in the US Gestational Surrogates and Donor Ova: postmenopausal mothers! Surrogates for convenience! Genetically superior women using genetically inferior surrogates! Criticisms of Assisted Reproduction: risks lack of effectiveness poor serving the wealthy as egg donors and surrogates Benefits of IVF and other forms of Assisted Reproduction: increases possibility of having a child ETHICAL PROBLEMS: destroyed embryos danger to fetus eugenics sex selection weakening of the family CLONING TWINNING selling duplicates genetic copies- twins, triplets, etc........ "spare" child in waiting AI: Artificial Insemination Sperm/ Egg Donation Does a woman have a "right" to AI? Does a woman have a "right" to select the type of sperm donor? Should donors be recorded to avoid insemination by kin? Surrogate Pregnancy Rich using the less fortunate? Buying babies? Outline by Don Berkich, University of Texas, Corpus Christi (by permission) The Standard Argument and the Argument from Potentiality
Singer's strategy is to reinterpret premise (1) so as to show the argument invalid. Why is killing a human being usually considered morally worse than killing other living beings? Because human beings have superior mental powers. If we reinterpret Premise (1) so as to restrict 'human being' to those members of homo sapiens with superior mental powers, then the Standard Argument commits the Fallacy of Equivocation. But should members of homo sapiens be protected just because they are members?
What justification can be given for premise (1)?
It might be objected to the two-petri dish thought experiment that the difference between the two dishes lies in the genetic uniqueness of the fertilized egg as opposed to the non-uniqueness of the unfertilized egg. But the uniqueness argument can be met with a refinement of the two-petri dish thought experiment. The minimal characteristic needed to give an embryo a claim to moral consideration is it's capacity to feel pleasure or pain.
But then it follows that other beings which feel pleasure or pain ought to be included in moral consideration. Implications of this principle for reproductive research/technology. ================================================================ ETHICAL THEORIES and REPRODUCTIVE CONTROL: Natural Law Theory; All techniques of assistance for married heterosexual couples is in keeping with the reproductive drive and natural law. Utilitarian Theory: An act utilitarian might approve of al such means to provide for happiness. A rule utilitarian might oppose those techniques which when used as a rule would over time produce less welfare for members of society. Kantian Theory: Would approve in general the practice of promoting births but would be opposed to any practices which violate the categorical imperative: any procedure that treats a person as a means and not as an end in him/herself. Rawls Theory: Would favor the use of technologies that promote the liberties of those involved and would not disadvantage the least well off. the least well off must be advantaged in some way by the use of the technologies. =========================================================== |
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