Although we can generally agree that individuals may and should be free to reproduce (or not), less clear is whether they may sometimes have duties to avoid reproduction. Does the right to reproduce mean that people should always reproduce or that they have an unrestricted right to do so? Are the instances where we may think that reproduction is wrong and immoral and that individuals should avoid conception and birth, hence parenting? Does making responsible decisions about reproduction mean that women should sometimes terminate a pregnancy? The idea that parents harm their children and society if they are unable to provide their children with a decent quality of life can be traced back to the works of John Stuart Mill (1859).
32 “Although future children” may “not have” full or any “moral standing” (Ankeny 2007), the principle of parental responsibility instructs prospective parents to take into account the interests of their future children when making decisions about reproduction (Steinbock & McClamrock 1994). Decisions to reproduce are therefore “accompanied by strong, positive duties to promote” the “health” and welfare “to any future child” (Ankeny 2007). Certain decisions “arise from the very decision” (Ankeny 2007) to reproduce, including rearing the “resulting child and to provide a life that is normal, at least in terms of societal norms” (Ankeny 2007). This means “that prospective parents who are in a position to prevent harm coming to a child have duties to mitigate or prevent such harms and suffering” (Ankeny 2007).
The issue “of whether we owe certain” duties “to our” children, “particularly so that they do not inherit genetic disease conditions has been extensively debated in the Bioethics literature” (Ankeny 2007). Commentators such as Purdy (1989) have for instance argued that people should refrain from having children “where there is a family history for genetic disease”, whereas others such as Arras (1990) and Harris (1989) have equally argued that people should refrain from reproduction where their children will suffer serious disability, “by practising abstinence, using contraception and prenatal testing and terminating a pregnancy (where these are socially acceptable options). Julian Savulescu for instance defends a principle of procreative beneficence, which he argues posits an obligation on individuals to“ select the child, of the possible children they could have, who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as the others, based on the relevant, available information” (Savulescu 2001). Essentially Savulescu proposes that given the range of factors e.g. intelligence and disability, affect a child’s chances at leading a good life that individuals should (have a duty) to use available to “genetic information and technologies to guide” their
33 “reproductive decision-making” (Ankeny 2007). This is controversial because Savulescu’s “argument makes an indirect claim about the duty not to have certain types of children, where other options are available” (Ankeny 2007).
Although it may be argued that his argument undermines widely held “views of human life as a gift to be unconditionally accepted”, it must be kept in mind that parents have, “in many senses, always had considerable but not unlimited authority, to shape their children’s lives through choices about education, , upbringing and so on” (Ankeny 2007). Prenatal genetic testing may then be just another means for prospective parents to shape their children’s lives.
The “argument for a duty to prevent passing on serious genetic diseases” to one’s biological offspring “typically begins from the idea that we should try to provide every child with a normal opportunity for health” (Ankeny 2007). On this understanding, “every child has an open future, which means that he or she has a right not to be raised in a manner that closes off a reasonable range of opportunities particularly for future autonomous choices” (Ankeny 2007). An “extreme position holds that termination of pregnancy is” obligatory (as opposed to merely voluntary); “when a woman learns she is pregnant with a fetus which has a serious problem and will develop into a child who will experience considerable pain and suffering” (Ankeny 2007). The argument rests “on the idea that it is wrong to deliberately inflict” harm, “and that a life of suffering is a harm to the child and thus not in its best interests” (Ankeny 2007). Although the woman who terminates a pregnancy may suffer psychological harm as a consequence, these harms are arguably “less weighty than the potential” harms “to the child who would experience severe impairment and suffering” (Ankeny 2007).
34 “Others” however “argue that there is no moral duty” to terminate a pregnancy “even in cases of genetic or other disease conditions, particularly where potential parents view the fetus as a child” (Ankeny 2007). They argue that "prospective parents are not required to find out about their genetic constitution when planning to reproduce and that ignoring genetic information can be reconciled with some views of responsible” or “good” parenting, particularly “those that take parenthood to be essentially an unconditional project in which parents” should “commit themselves to nurturing any kind of child” (Ankeny 2007). Others point out that, even though prenatal and “other forms of genetic testing may be useful when making decisions about reproduction, it does not prevent harm to actual, future children” (Ankeny 2007). Parents may still opt to continue a pregnancy despite the risks. Finally some others argue that children with disabling conditions are “not harmed by being born because the only other option for that child was not to have been born, and thus never to have existed” (Ankeny 2007). By these accounts “a pregnant woman has a right to remain in ignorance of any genetic conditions present in the fetus she is carrying” (Ankeny 2007) because the constitution of one’s child doesn’t/shouldn’t matter. Children are not harmed by being born or by their not being born. Mary-Anne Warren (1978) expresses the point in the following manner: “failing to have a child, even when you could have a happy one, is neither right nor wrong… But the same cannot be said of having a child, since in this case the action results in the existence of a new person whose interests must be taken into account. Having a child under conditions which should enable one to predict that it will be very unhappy is morally objectionable, not because it violates the rights of a presently existing potential person, but because it results in the frustration of the interests of an actual person in the future” (cited in Steinbock & McClamrock 1994).
35 Underlying all of these arguments is the core idea “about a relatively objective notion of acceptable quality of life, upon which” many “or all could agree, and which individuals” can “use to assess their duties and responsibilities. However, individuals’ experiences of various conditions and life experiences differ dramatically” (Ankeny 2007). Thus it could “be argued that individual family experiences and understandings should determine individuals’ senses of” their “duties” and responsibilities “regarding” reproduction (Ankeny 2007). “If a family is willing to raise a child with” serious mental retardation “there is no strong moral” duty to claim that they have a duty to avoid reproduction (Ankeny 2007). “Part of having a normal range of life opportunities includes” (not) “having and raising children” and “it is an important” determinant “of the good life for many people (Ankeny 2007). Some would argue that no one would want a loved one to suffer” a serious condition or illness (Ankeny 2007).
Given the “diverse opinions and beliefs about the moral legitimacy of termination under various sorts of circumstances”, it seems “difficult to maintain there are objective duties to (or not to) reproduce” (Ankeny 2007). To “claim that children have a right to be born” is problematic because “it is impossible to say what such a right involves” (Ankeny 2007). For example, does it mean that individuals ought to always reproduce and that it would be wrong to use contraception or terminate a pregnancy? “Even if we might be able to outline the basis for such a rights claim, enforcing it” would infringe on the pregnant woman’s “most basic rights and also is likely to undermine the maternal-fetal relationship” (Hornstra 1998).
“Although one assumes a range of responsibilities in making a decision to reproduce, including consideration of the conditions that should be in place to bear and rear a child, there are no obvious objective norms for ideal childrearing conditions. Whether
36 a child is likely to have a happy and healthy upbringing cannot be gauged directly by e.g. the sexuality, age or marital status of parents” (Ankeny 2007). Although it can be said that responsible reproduction requires careful consideration about the timing and circumstances for reproduction, “there is no strong duty to refrain from” it "except perhaps under extreme conditions where a potential child is likely to experience considerable suffering” (Ankeny 2007).
For many people, “reproduction is an important part of having a good life and deserves protection as a right because it is the usual way to establish a family” (Ankeny 2007). It is for at least this reason that the decision to reproduce or not should remain a decision to be made by individuals. Although one may argue that individuals have duties to take into account their social circumstances and the future lives of their potential children, it is difficult to argue that individuals’ reproductive autonomy should be utterly trumped by other issues and concerns, in other words, that they have strong duties not to reproduce.