2. El marco teórico: la crisis de la prensa
2.2. El cambio de modelo comunicativo
2.2.11. Las alarmas que enciende Internet
The basic idea behind a principle of parental responsibility is that prospective parents should think about the consequences for the children before embarking on parenthood. It does not demand that people cannot become parents if conditions are ideal. In terms of the principle, it would be “wrong to bring children into the world when there is good reason to think that their lives will be” miserable (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). This means that individuals who desire to become parents may sometimes have to postpone or avoid reproduction entirely, until certain minimum conditions can be satisfied. The principle of parental responsibility implies that parents who will be or are incapable of providing their child with the minimum conditions for a decent life should avoid reproduction. At the same time the principle also implies that one should avoid reproduction if one’s child is likely to be born without a chance at a normal life. Essentially the principle holds “that prospective parents are morally obligated to consider the kinds of lives” that their children “are likely to have, and to refrain from having children if their lives will be sufficiently” miserable (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). But what is so miserable, that it would be wrong to reproduce or bear a child?
Laura Purdy (1989) considers whether individuals “at risk of” passing on “serious disease to their” children should reproduce (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). She argues that “individuals at high risk of transmitting” Huntington’s disease, a lethal genetic disorder, to the children, “are unable to provide them with -at least a normal opportunity for a good life and therefore should” refrain from reproduction (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). Purdy however recognises that everyone won’t agree with her
162 conclusion, because not everyone shares her assessment of life with a serious disease. Huntington’s chorea, in addition, is a disease that only affects people from their forties onwards; before then, they can lead relatively normal lives. She acknowledges that “Optimists argue that a child born into a family afflicted with Huntington's chorea has a reasonable chance of living a satisfactory life.... Even if it does have the illness, it will probably enjoy thirty years of healthy life before symptoms appear... Optimists can list diseased or handicapped persons who have lived fruitful lives. They can also find individuals who seem genuinely glad to be alive” (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). A “stronger case for the moral obligation not to reproduce” is offered by John Arras (1990) who considers whether women who are infected with HIV and run the risk of transmitting the virus to their children should forgo reproduction for the sake of children (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). Arras (1990) recognises that not all pregnant women infected with HIV will transmit the virus to their children and “that the severity of the disease varies widely”, but argues that even better-off HIV-infected children have lives that are, in Arras’s phrase, “decidedly grim” (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). So, even though children infected with HIV may live somewhat satisfactory lives, the chances are good that they will live their lives under a cloud of impending death. Arras (1990) points out that in many instances, these children will also be born to parents who are themselves dying and who are therefore usually unable to care for their children. He argues that “When the medical and the social realities are considered, even an optimist should concede that it is very unlikely that an HIV-infected woman will be able to provide her baby with a reasonable (much less a normal) chance at a good life” (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). Arras is not denying the “optimist” view, that some children may live somewhat satisfactory lives
163 despite having a serious disease or disability; instead he argues that these lives still fall short of a relatively normal life.
Individuals desiring to become parents base their decisions about reproduction on a myriad of factors, which should include consideration of their ability to provide a good or relatively normal life and the quality of life. Providing children with a minimally decent life requires that parents make reasonable sacrifices that entail forgoing certain pleasures and behaviours for the sake of their future children. Although “the principle of parental responsibility does not provide a formula” (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994) for making decisions about reproduction and parenthood, and because people can and do often differ on what a decent life entails, and what risks are worth taking, decisions concerning reproduction are best made by the individuals, and in particular women, themselves, since it is mostly they who will bear the burdens of childbearing and rearing.
The right to reproduce does not imply a duty to reproduce; only that people can [or should be allowed to] choose whether they wish to become parents. Because pregnancy imposes burdens on women, it should not be compelled. These burdens (or harms) are not merely that one’s body undergoes substantial change for months. In and of itself, pregnancy can impose financial, psychological, vocational and social hardships. To require women to undertake these hardships would constitute a form of involuntary servitude. Any moral or social order compelling women to undertake it unwillingly violates any claim to promoting their full social and sexual equality with men. Until a full-proof method of contraception exists, and as long as the only way for human life to develop is within women’s bodies, women need the option of abortion in order to avoid being fettered by biology. Contraception and abortion offer women the opportunities to separate sexuality from parenthood, and thus enable them to
164 undertake parenthood only when they feel it makes sense for their lives (Asch 1986). While pregnancy could and usually does lead to social parenthood, it need not, where women have options to avoid it.
One implication of the principle of parental responsibility as far as women are concerned is that it posits moral obligation on them to make responsible choices about pregnancy, birth and parenthood. It requires that they not harm but seek to benefit their future children by ensuring that the child will have a reasonably normal life. Thus the principle suggests that maternal drinking during pregnancy is prima facie wrong because it risks serious disability in one’s child, and constitutes irresponsible parenting behaviour. The principle does not imply that women have duties to not reproduce or to terminate their pregnancies if their children will suffer harm or live somewhat miserable lives. It only implies that they choose wisely and take into account the kinds of lives that their children will most likely live when making decisions. It also requires that parents make fair assessments about their ability to provide for the child’s basic needs to live a relatively normal life before choosing to have a child. Thus, in terms of the principle, there may be cases where the child’s life will be so miserable that an abortion may be an “appropriate” and responsible “exercise of parental responsibility” (Freeman 1997:180). Deliberately conceiving a child that is likely to suffer from serious disability to live in a world that generally rejects and stigmatises disabled people seems morally reprehensible when one has the option of preventing this.
However one reason for rejecting an obligation to terminate a pregnancy for reasons of disability is because it violates the common sense notion that we should be allowed to end human life simply because it does not meet our specifications. We tend to think that, in deciding to become parents, we should be open to the possibility that we will
165 have children who do not meet our specifications of the “perfect” child. We may well have a child who will suffer from serious disease or disability or one who doesn’t have the physical traits we had hoped for. Even so, people generally tend to think that parents should welcome into their lives and this world, any type of child.
Ending pregnancies for reasons of disability have serious moral and social implications that go beyond an individual woman’s reproductive decisions about her own life. Terminating a human life that has already begun is not the same as pulling an infected tooth. Moreover terminating a pregnancy because of the conditions of our own lives, says something very different to terminating one’s pregnancy because we don’t like what we find out about the child (Asch 1999:387). Terminating a pregnancy because the child will be or is at risk for disability differs from a decision to end a pregnancy because one’s life has radically changed, in that it is a statement not about the woman but about the value assigned to a future child that has characteristics we don’t like. Hence, feminists such as Asch (1999) and more generally disability rights activists argue that a society that condones abortion of disabled future children communicates a message that impairment is reason enough to make life and death decisions about one’s potential value. They point out that abortion for disability- related reasons can be used as a eugenic tool and that society must consider whether it wants to send out the message to disabled people that there should be no more of their kind in future. People who are in favour of eugenic action typically believe that the quality of the human race can be improved by reducing the fertility of “undesirable” groups and at the same time, encouraging the birth rate of “desirable” groups. However, because selectively terminating the existence of seriously damaged or disabled fetuses, like abortion on the basis of sex selection, has the effect of distorting
166 the structure and balance of different groups in a population, it is also potentially unfair.
The principle or parental responsibility seems to imply that the only way to prevent a severely disabled or FAS child from being born is to terminate a pregnancy. In turn then it seems to follow that the woman has a general duty to submit to an abortion. But the woman also has a general right to bodily integrity – a right to choose whether to abort or not, as she prefers – thus it seems to follow that she cannot have a duty to terminate a pregnancy any more than she can have a duty not to abort a pregnancy (Feinberg, 1985:72). It is however reasonable to say that the prospective mother’s duty is to take only reasonable steps to prevent harm while denying that abortion is something that can reasonably be expected or demanded of her; or perhaps we should say that the rights in question are mere prima facie rights, or claims of different strength, so that one type overrides the other.
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