Paying for particulars in people-to-be: commercialisation,
commodification and commensurability in human reproduction
by
Fox D. Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street,
New Haven, CT 06511, USA.
dov.fox@yale.edu
J Med Ethics. 2008 Mar;34(3):162-6.
ABSTRACTThe push of biomedical profits and pull of consumer desire for greater happiness and superior performance heralds a robust market in offspring enhancement. There are two reasons we might worry about the reach of commerce into the realm of selective reproduction. The first concern is that for-profit genetic enhancement, under conditions of economic necessity, would exploit the poor, by coercing them, in effect, to part with reproductive material they would prefer not to sell for money, if not for their desperate situation. The second concern is that the market valuation and exchange of sperm, eggs, and embryos would distort the meaning, and degrade the worth, of those procreative goods. I argue that the concern about exploitation does not give reason to resist a market in pre-natal enhancement, but that the concern about degradation does. This degradation concern gives rise to two specific worries: one about altruism and another about commensurability. I conclude by sketching several policy recommendations to regulate the transfer of money in exchange for sperm and eggs with specified characteristics.Biohappiness
Eugenics talk
Reprogenetics
Genospirituality
Private eugenics
'Designer babies'
Personal genomics
Psychiatric genetics
Genetic enhancement
Eugenics before Galton
Human self-domestication
Selecting potential children
Germline genetic engineering
Mood genes and human nature
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis
Francis Galton and contemporary eugenics
Gene therapy and performance enhancement
Refs
and further readingHOME
Resources
Wireheading
BLTC Research
nootropic.com
Superhappiness?
Utopian Surgery?
The Good Drug Guide
The Abolitionist Project
The Hedonistic Imperative
The Reproductive Revolution
MDMA: Utopian Pharmacology
Critique of Huxley's Brave New World
