Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The problem with reproductive freedom
T2 - Procreation beyond procreators’ interests
AU - Cavaliere, Giulia
N1 - Author was employed at another UK HEI at the time of submission and was deposited at Kings College London Repository, see link https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-problem-with-reproductive-freedom-procreation-beyond-procreators-interests(fce14b5d-50e0-4e02-9eae-ea75f0a42a0b).html
PY - 2020/3/1
Y1 - 2020/3/1
N2 - Reproductive freedom plays a pivotal role in debates on the ethics of procreation. This moral principle protects people’s interests in procreative matters and allows them discretion over whether to have children, the number of children they have and, to a certain extent, the type of children they have. Reproductive freedom’s theoretical and political emphasis on people’s autonomy and well-being is grounded in an individual-centred framework for discussing the ethics of procreation. It protects procreators’ interests and significantly reduces the permissible grounds for interference by third parties. In this article I show that procreative decisions have far-reaching effects on the composition and size of the population. The upshot of considering these effects allows for the appreciation of the inadequacy of a framework that solely considers individual (i.e. procreators’) interests to discuss the ethics of procreation. To address such inadequacy, I assess costs and benefits of past and present proposals to reflect on procreation in such a way as to consider its far-reaching effects. I conclude by arguing that reproductive freedom should be defended as an imperfect but instrumentally necessary tool. This framing would enable those participating in debates on the ethics of procreative decisions to work towards an ethical framework that accounts for the cumulative effects of these decisions.
AB - Reproductive freedom plays a pivotal role in debates on the ethics of procreation. This moral principle protects people’s interests in procreative matters and allows them discretion over whether to have children, the number of children they have and, to a certain extent, the type of children they have. Reproductive freedom’s theoretical and political emphasis on people’s autonomy and well-being is grounded in an individual-centred framework for discussing the ethics of procreation. It protects procreators’ interests and significantly reduces the permissible grounds for interference by third parties. In this article I show that procreative decisions have far-reaching effects on the composition and size of the population. The upshot of considering these effects allows for the appreciation of the inadequacy of a framework that solely considers individual (i.e. procreators’) interests to discuss the ethics of procreation. To address such inadequacy, I assess costs and benefits of past and present proposals to reflect on procreation in such a way as to consider its far-reaching effects. I conclude by arguing that reproductive freedom should be defended as an imperfect but instrumentally necessary tool. This framing would enable those participating in debates on the ethics of procreative decisions to work towards an ethical framework that accounts for the cumulative effects of these decisions.
KW - Procreation
KW - Reproductive freedom
KW - Eugenics
KW - Climate change
U2 - 10.1007/s11019-019-09917-3
DO - 10.1007/s11019-019-09917-3
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 31410737
VL - 23
SP - 131
EP - 140
JO - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
JF - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
SN - 1386-7423
IS - 1
ER -