The article ‘Procreative Beneficence: Why we should select the best children’ by Julian Savulescu emphasizes on why couples should choose the best offspring that they could possibly have and also expect the child to have the best life with the available and relevant information. Determining the genes of your child from non-disease states is imperative since you can use the information that is readily available to bring out the best possible outcomes (Savulescu 417). There are quite a number of reproductive technologies that allow the parents to measure the selection of the types of offsprings that they will possibly have. These technologies may include prenatal testing, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and in vitro fertilization (IVF). For example, potential parents may employ PGD with IVF to produce multiple embryos and then select the best embryo to implant based on the genetic traits of each embryo.
However, this principle of Procreative Beneficence has proved to be controversial in both its implications as well as reasoning most probably because it places a low moral value of the disabled in the society. Moreover, Julian Savulescu’s principle is underdetermining, in that the principle does not give comprehensible and determinate answers to which lives are the best (Munson 62). Therefore, it proves to be highly problematic and complicated since factors such as the value of an individual’s life should be considered.
In conclusion, many people instinctively feel that they would rather not live in a world of disability by endorsing the Procreative Beneficence principle. This perception shows us the preferences that individuals have of their lives and that of their descendants. In projecting moral importance just as parents seek to select the best children rather than the ones with predispositions to diseases, they should also consider selecting a child with abilities, not disabilities (Hope 38). Consequently, the neologism of genoism is impermissible because it is downright unethical, and it involves illegal genetic discrimination.
Works Cited
Hope, T. Medical ethics: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.
Munson, R. Intervention and reflection: Basic issues in bioethics. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
Savulescu, J. "Procreative beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children."Bioethics 15.5 (2001): 414-425. Web.
