The Ethical Implications of Reproductive Technology

A detailed Summary of The Ethical Implications of Reproductive Technology

Reproductive technology has come a long way in the last twenty years and continues to make expansive advances. The question "where do babies come from" is becoming harder and harder to answer. The response used to sound something like "when a man and a woman love each other very much..." now with in vitro fertilization, fertility drugs, and sperm/egg donors as well as future advances the answer will take on a new twist "...they go to see a doctor and look through a catalog to pick what kind of baby they want."

That is already true to some degree today. If a man or a woman is infertile they can look for sperm or egg donors, try fertility drugs or use in vitro fertilization to bring together their own genetic material in a petri dish. In the case of donors, potential parents are poring over the donor's medical history, physical description, and social standing in order to find a worthy candidate to supply the genetic material of their offspring. This process has several moral implications. "Superior" donors, educated people, models, and other genetically "elite" are costing more on the genetic market. This practice is turning human beings into a commodity. Is it morally sound to be able put a price on a person?

on should their unborn child be afflicted? If parents can choose the sex of the child will this offset the ratio of women to men? These are all questions that need to be answered. Natural law ethicists and people who believe the divine command theory would oppose reproductive technology. In the case of the natural law ethicist, human mortals are altering what is natural and that is morally wrong. The divine command theory believes that whatever God has created is what is good, and since these children will be created in a lab they are therefore violating this principle.

Act utilitarianism argues that we should "maximize the goodness for all people." At first glance genetically altering fetuses to eradicate disease and undesired characteristics appears to benefit the human race and hence it appears to be morally correct. But we should take the future repercussions into consideration. What if eliminating disease and strengthening the human genome leads to overpopulation and consequently results in death and destruction of the planet?

The only school of thought that really seems to praise the moral implications of reproductive technology is the ethical egoist, which states, "One ought always maximize one's own personal good." A parent's decision to have a genetically perfect child serves in their best interests and has moral standing. This can also be argued for the future child, it is in the child's best interest to have superior genetic information and not be susceptible to damaging genetic diseases and health problems.

The future seems very scientific, and maybe even bleak. It's not a question of what if this coul

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Approximate Word count = 1108
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History