Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T15:07:09.298Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Genes, identity and the ‘expressivist critique’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2009

By
Rob Sparrow
Edited by
Loane Skene  and
Janna Thompson
Loane Skene
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Janna Thompson
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Technologies such as prenatal testing, combined with the option of abortion, and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis now give prospective parents unprecedented power to choose the genetics of their children. In effect, they allow parents to sort embryos according to whether they have desirable or undesirable genes. A society in which such technologies become widespread – as they have in many industrialized nations already – might be thought of as a ‘sorting society’. This description, however, immediately draws attention to another, more disturbing, potential in these technologies. Critics of the sorting society worry that it involves choosing between different ‘sorts’ of people, deciding who will be born on the basis of a belief that some sorts of people are better than others.

The shameful historical legacy of racial eugenics has meant that there is little open enthusiasm for using modern technologies of genetic selection to select for (supposed) racial traits. While technologies enabling sex selection have been widely adopted to that purpose, their use in this fashion has, I think, at least as many critics as admirers amongst those writing about the ethics of this practice. Instead, these sorting technologies have been taken up and defended most enthusiastically in the service of the goal of preventing the birth of children who might suffer from various disabilities. As a result, it has been critics from within the disability community who have thought hardest about – and have raised some of the most forceful objections to – the development of the sorting society.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Sorting Society
The Ethics of Genetic Screening and Therapy
 , pp. 111 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asch, A., ‘Reproductive technology and disability’ in Cohen, S. and Taub, N. (eds.), Reproductive Laws for the 1990s (Clifton, NJ: Humana Press, 1988) 69–124Google Scholar
Asch, A., ‘Why I haven't changed my mind about prenatal diagnosis: reflections and refinements’ in Parens, E. and Asch, A. (eds.), Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000) 234–58.Google Scholar
Wendell, S., The Rejected Body (New York: Routledge, 1996).Google Scholar
Saxton, M., ‘Disability rights and selective abortion’ in Solinger, R. (ed.), Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997) 374–95.Google Scholar
Kaplan, D., ‘Prenatal screening and its impact on persons with disabilities’ (1993) 36(3) Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology605–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buchanan, A., ‘Choosing who will be disabled: genetic intervention and the morality of inclusion’ (1996) 13(1) Social Philosophy and Policy18–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parens, E. and Asch, A. (eds.), Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Stainton, T., ‘Identity, difference and the ethical politics of prenatal testing’ (2003) 47(7) Journal of Intellectual Disability Research533–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buchanan, A., Brock, D. W., Daniels, N. and Wikler, D., From Chance to Choice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, A., ‘Women with disabilities: abortion and liberation’ (1987) 2(3) Disability, Handicap & Society275–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinbock, B., ‘Disability, prenatal testing, and selective abortion’ in Parens, E. and Asch, A. (eds.) Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000) 108–23.Google Scholar
Agar, N., Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, J. L., ‘Prenatal diagnosis, personal identity, and disability’ (2000) 10(3 (September)) Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal213–28CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Savulescu, J., ‘Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best children’ (2001) 15(5) Bioethics413–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, J., Clones, Genes and Immortality: Ethics and the Genetic Revolution. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) Chapter 3Google Scholar
Zohar, N. J., ‘Prospects for “genetic therapy” – can a person benefit from being altered?’ (1991) 5(4) Bioethics275–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, J. L., ‘The meaning of the act: reflections on the expressive force of reproductive decision making and policies’ (1998) 8(2) Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal165–82CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parens, E. and Asch, A. (eds.), Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000) 215.Google Scholar
Baily, M. A., ‘Why I had amniocentesis’ in Parens, E. and Asch, A. (eds.) Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000) 66.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P., The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996) Chapter 11Google Scholar
Parfit, D., Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Oomman, N. and Ganatra, B. R., ‘Sex selection: the systematic elimination of girls’ (2002) 10(19) Reproductive Health Matters184–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Asch, A. and Geller, G., ‘Feminism, bioethics, and genetics’ in Wolf, S. (ed.), Feminism and Bioethics: Beyond Reproduction (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 325.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×