New Reproduction Technologies

A detailed Summary of New Reproduction Technologies

During the debate on March 15, 2000 which discussed new reproductive technologies (NRTS) issues were raised regarding the positive and negative effects of NRTS. Issues raised by the advocates of NRTS were surrounding infertility, homosexuality, disease, and cloning. All of these factors raised were concerning the moral rights of individuals who were unable to have children of their own without the help of NRTS. The debate continued by stating that denying individuals the right to utilize NRTS was immoral and in effect discriminated against them due to their "unfavorable" situation. In contrast, the opposition against NRTS raised very negative concerns which included the commercialization of human reproduction, quality control, generating waste products, and the rights of the pre-embryo. These issues suggest that through NRTS children were being commodified and the rights of the pre-embryo were being ignored. The debate generally focused on the rights of the individual, man or woman, versus the rights of the unborn child.

The debate was very interesting which led me to look at the impact of NRTS at another angle. After examining the issues raised in the debate I was left questioning why NRTS exist in the first place? Whose inte

Rejecting the claim that it is an individual's moral right to engage in NRTS is based on the definition of a moral right. A moral right is an opportunity to choose an option that is available to everyone else. To deny a person the right to engage in an activity that every other person can do is morally wrong. It is just like, to use an example from Seinfeld, the "soup nazi" taking control over his soup restaurant by deciding who can have soup and who cannot by the manner in which a person orders soup. In this example the if you do not: step up to the counter, state what kind of soup you want, step to the right, pay for your soup, and leave without speaking; then the "soup nazi" yells, "no soup for you, next!". It is an extreme example of denying a person the same opportunity as everyone else but it gets the point across that moral rights are based on equal opportunity. The reason, then, that NRTS are not a moral issue is due to the fact that they are expensive and not available to everyone unless the individual can afford it (which the majority of the population cannot). If NRTS were covered under OHIP then they would be considered a moral right of the individual, because everyone would have access to them and denying a person the opportunity to engage in NRTS would be denying them a moral right. This is precisely the difference between abortion and NRTS. Due to the fact that anyone can have access to abortions, denying a person the ability to have an abortion is immoral. Of course other issues factor into the debate consisting of the unborn child's right to life, but because abortion is accessible to everyone, it becomes a moral issue. NRTS, therefore, follow under the category of freedom of choice. The freedom to choose without the threat of punishment. This is an interesting topic, choice, which brings into account many other factors which will be addressed in the next section.

Throughout this paper I have discussed reasons why no one has the moral right to engage in NRTS and why it is difficult to state that an individual can choose NRTS. I am obviously not advocating NRTS, but I am also not stating that NRTS should be morally wrong, since there is no moral issue to begin with. The point of my essay is to inform people about the risks of associating NRTS with such words as "rights" and "choice". Further investigation reveals that using such terms to describe NRTS has repercussions. I am advocating for a more informed view on the issues of NRTS, not regarding the moral rights and wrongs, but regarding the societal pressures to conform and utilize the technology when it is presented as an option. The issues surrounding NRTS go much further than infertility, homosexuality, commodification, and the rights of the pr

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Approximate Word count = 1846
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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