Davis: Genetic Delemmas and the Child's Right to an Open Future Flashcards
a moral dilemma for genetic counselors
- deaf parents who request help in ensuring a deaf child
usual way of understanding dilemma: conflict between beneficence (child’s quality of life) and autonomy (parent’s right to decide)
Davis’ suggestion: better apraoch, a conflict between parental autonomy and the child’s future autonomy (the right to an open future)
Code of Ethics: National Society of Genetic Counselors
- respect client’s beliefs, cultural traditions, inclinations, circumstances, and feelings
- enable their clients to make informed decisions
- provide facts
- clarifying alternatives and consequences
Code of Ethics raises some issues
- some deaf families view themselves as a minority group that is part of a culture (576)
- davis sets aside the case of “Aborting a hearing child” to focus on examining genetic evaluation of sperm and egg (and in vitro fertilization prior to implantation)
the case of the deaf couple
- genetically deaf couple who seeks help in increasing the chances that they will have a deaf child
- a dilemma for the counselor
- on the one hand, they should respect the clients wishes and values
- on the other hand, they might feel supporting those wishes by helping to create a deaf child is no longer a value neutral approach
Feinberg’s 4 kinds of rights
- rights adults and children have in common
- rights only children have (dependency rights)
- rights only adults can exercise
- rights held in “trust” (saved for the child until adulthood) (these rights in 4 are “right to an open future”)
2 examples illustrating the right to open future (578)
- jehovah’s witness parents: refuse blood transfusion for child
- amish parents who refuse to send their children to school after 8th grade
Davis: the children themselves are ignored here. how?
amish parents who refuse to send their children to school after 8th grade
- community would be destroyed by high school requirement
- the concern that children be prepared to participate in the political/economic life of the state does not apply here
liberalism
- political philosophy that emphasizes individual freedom and equality of all citizens
- tends to emphasize the need for the state to be neutral and respect diverse ways of life
conflict in liberalism
- autonomy sometimes collides with diversity
- we want diverse communities as options for people, but some options are anti-liberal: they deny choice
- davis favors a priority of autonomy of individual over autonomy of group
- supports the right of the child to get an education in order to make an informed choice
- but… does this mean the state is no longer impartial/neutral (380)
2 questions about moral harm of creating a deaf child
- can you even harm a potential person? how is the child harmed if the only other option was its non-existence?
- is deafness, or other disabilities, even a harm
davis’ answer to the first question
- forces the deaf child into the parent’s version of a good life, thus violating kant’s principle that we should treat people as ends in themselves - as having value for their own sake (581)
- closes the child off to an open future of his/her own choosing. so, even if no person exists, the future autonomy of the person is violated
is deafness a harm?
- see the complexities on p. 582-583
- deafness is a culture
- deafness as a disabling only due to social contexts (the Martha’s Vineyard community)
- Still: narrower choice of vocations/limited options
- so, answer to the 2nd question is if deafness is disability, then it is wrong to cause. if it is a culture, the culture is comparatively narrow, and therefore a moral harm (583)
concluding cases about right to open future
what about right to know genetic diseases? wait for the child to make that decision
- objections to sex-selection
