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CONTROLLING OUR REPRODUCTIVE DESTINY: TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES FASTER THAN ETHICS

Nonetheless, even if we all agreed that only the harm principle should shape our reproductive policies, we would still have some hard work ahead of us. The fact that a court rules that a law is (un)constitutional or a legislative body votes unanimously for a bill does not mean that the law or bill is right, and any retreat from the willingness to do our own moral thinking is particularly irresponsible when it comes to technological developments that control or assist a process as important as human reproduction.

Frequently, we express the concern that technology advances faster than ethics. We worry that our reproductive technologies are developing without humane guidance and that we are going to use them whether or not we comprehend their moral implications. Yet our reproductive technologies have the capacity not only to create new moral challenges and problems but also to resolve some old moral challenges and problems. For example, if researchers develop the artificial placenta, they will solve the abortion dilemma in one major respect: Fetal extraction will no longer have to result in fetal extinction. Of course, were the artificial placenta developed, both sides of the abortion debate would need to ask themselves some previously unasked questions. For example, when a pregnant woman chooses abortion, is it only fetal extraction or also fetal extinction that is her goal? Similarly, when a person claims that she or he wants to save "babies" from being aborted, is she or he ready to commit billions of dollars to the maintenance of fetuses in artificial placentas so that every one of them can come to term? What if this particular expenditure caused health care to consume not simply 12 percent of the gross national product, as it does now, but 24 or even 36 percent of it? These are hard questions because no one wants to think that human love is limited or that human life is anything less than the ultimate value and yet, unless we ask ourselves the hard questions, we are acting in a largely irresponsible manner.

The cumulative knowledge of scientists, technologists, ethicists, lawyers, and concerned citizens certainly benefits us, but it also burdens us. The more we know about reproduction-controlling and reproduction-aiding technologies, the more responsible we become to make them serve such fundamental human values as freedom, happiness, and justice. These technologies can liberate people to make decisions about whether to become parents; they can bring happiness to the aggregate, depending on how wisely they are used; and they can bring justice to individuals, depending on how widely they are distributed. On the other hand, these technologies can enslave people, make them very unhappy, and violate their rights. The initial choice belongs to each of us, the ultimate consequences to all of us.

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CONTROLLING OUR REPRODUCTIVE DESTINY: TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES FASTER THAN ETHICS

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