Choosing Children Genes, Disability, and Design

Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us thepossibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should wewelcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethicalquestion more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history ofhumanity. The renowned moral philosopher and best-selling author Jonathan Glovershows us how we might try to answer this question, and other provoking anddisturbing questions to which it leads. Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can?Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilitiesand disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinkingabout the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who havethese conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. Howdo we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being? In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness tohave a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but adifference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, Jonathan Gloverexamines the emotive idea of 'eugenics', and the ethics of attempting to enhancepeople, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents befree, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, forinstance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distantprospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will suchinterventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole?Should we try to make general improvements to the genetic make-up of humanbeings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must notinterfere? This beautifully clear book is written for anyone who cares about the rights andwrongs of parents' choices for their children, anyone who is concerned about ourhuman future. Glover handles these uncomfortable questions in a controversialbut always humane and sympathetic manner.

Jonathan Glover is Professor of Ethics at King's College, University of London, and the Director of the Center for Medical Law and Ethics. He is the author of Causing Death and Saving Lives: The Moral Problems of Abortion, Infanticide, Suicide, Euthanasia, Capital Punishment, War, and Other Life-or-Death Choices and Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, among other books.