Sex is over-rated: On the right to reproduce

Abstract

In this article, I will show what is respected most in human reproduction and parenting is not a right to reproduce in the way in which this right is explicitly proposed. The only way in which people can become, and function as, parents without having to submit themselves to anyone else's judgements and decisions, is by having reproductive sex. Whatever one's intentions, social status, standard of living, income, etc., so long as assistance is not required, that person's reproductive decisions will not be interfered with in any way, at least not until neglect or abuse of their offspring becomes known. Moreover, none of the features that are said to back the right to reproduce (such as bodily integrity or personal autonomy) can justify one's unquestioned access to the relationship with another unable to consent (the child). This indicates that the discourse in terms of the right to reproduce as is currently used so as to justify non-interference with natural reproduction and parenting coupled with the regulation of assisted forms of reproduction and parenting, is at best self-deluding and that all it protects is people's freedom to have reproductive sex and handle the consequences.

Keywords:

• Reproductive choice
• assisted conception
• bioethics

Notes

Notes

1 Neither does Ronald Dworkin's account cover parenting. According to Dworkin (1995, pages 148 and 166–167), reproductive autonomy is ‘a right [of women] to control their own role in procreation unless the state has a compelling reason for denying them that control. (…) The right to procreative autonomy has an important place (…) in Western political culture more generally. The most important feature of that culture is a belief in individual human dignity: that people have the moral right – and the moral responsibility – to confront the most fundamental questions about the meaning and value of their own lives for themselves, answering to their own conscience and convictions. (…) The principle of procreative autonomy, in a broad sense, is embedded in any genuinely democratic culture’. However, once another human being with morally relevant interests (the child) is in the picture, whether or not children can be rights-holders, the ‘fundamental questions’ concern not only the interests of the parents (e.g. the desire to give meaning and value to one's own life via reproduction and parenting) but also those of the child. Parents, therefore, will have more than their own conscience and convictions to answer to.

2 In her article, Bartholet continues: ‘There is an essentially absolute right to produce a child, but there is no right to enter into a parenting relationship with a child who is not linked by blood – no right to adopt. Foster parents, stepparents, and others who develop nurturing relationships with children are deemed to have no right to maintain such relationships. They and the children who may have come to depend on them are subject to the whim of the blood-linked parent’.

3 See for instance Mill's famous anti-voluntary slavery argument, in On Liberty (Mill, 1859, pages 184–185): ‘But by selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself. He is no longer free, but is thenceforth in a position which has no longer the presumption in its favour that would be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom to be allowed to alienate his freedom’.

4 For detailed testimonies on the pro-parenting culture, see for example, Arcana, 1981 (based on interviews with 120 women, some childless, some not), chapter 7; Veevers, 1980 (based on interviews with 156 people, all childless); Smith, 1997, part II. For up to date testimonies, see The Childless by Choice Project (at www.childlessbychoiceproject.com), and Kidding Aside, The British Childfree Association (at www.kiddingaside.net).

5 Granted, many of these are not real options for many women even in our time. However, this is another matter, which does not affect the issue that we are here debating, which is whether and in what way people have a moral right to reproduce.

6 It has been argued that the reason why genetic relatedness is given such a high regard is the fact that, although not explicitly, we still think that children somehow belong to their biological parents. In his famous article ‘Licensing Parents’ (Lafollette, 1980, page 182), Hugh LaFollette argues that this is the underlying belief behind the reluctance to interfere with natural parenting. See also David Archard's analysis (Archard, 1990, pages 183–194, especially at 186–188).

7 Which do exist in abundance, see e.g. ‘Facts on Children. Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse’, on the website of UNICEF, at www.unicef.org; ‘Child abuse – figures’, on the webpage of Advocates for Survivors from Child Abuse, at http://www.asca.org.au/; ‘Facts and figures about child abuse’, on the webpage of The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), at http://www.nspcc.org.uk/.

8 And there are many moderate proposals to change the status quo, which do not require any of the drastic measures mentioned. Some of these are included in Tittle, 2004. See also Archard, 1990 and Westman, 1994.

9 For a suggestion of a possible course of action along with its justification, see Bortolotti and Cutas (2009, forthcoming).