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Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny

Assisted reproductive technologies have greatly increased our control over reproductive choices, leading some bioethicists to argue that we face unprecedented moral obligations towards progeny. Several models attempting to balance the principle of procreative autonomy with these obligations have bee...

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Autor principal: Battisti, Davide
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8252484/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33811352
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12871
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author Battisti, Davide
author_facet Battisti, Davide
author_sort Battisti, Davide
collection PubMed
description Assisted reproductive technologies have greatly increased our control over reproductive choices, leading some bioethicists to argue that we face unprecedented moral obligations towards progeny. Several models attempting to balance the principle of procreative autonomy with these obligations have been proposed. The least demanding is the minimal threshold model (MTM), according to which every reproductive choice is permissible, except creating children whose lives will not be worth living. Hence, as long as the future child is likely to have a life worth living, prospective parents may be allowed to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select embryos with genetic diseases or disabilities. Assuming a consequentialist person‐affecting view of morality, this paper investigates whether the MTM is an appropriate tool to guide procreative decisions given the continuous development of reproductive genetic technologies. In particular, I consider germline genome editing (GGE) and I argue that its application in human reproduction, unlike PGD, should be conceived as person‐affecting towards future progeny. I claim that even if we assume the plausibility of the MTM within PGD, we are committed to accepting that a greater moral obligation towards progeny should guide procreative decisions if GGE were available. In this case, the MTM should no longer be considered an appropriate instrument to guide procreative choices. Finally, I investigate when we face this greater moral obligation, concluding that it applies only when prospective parents have already engaged in the in vitro fertilization process.
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spelling pubmed-82524842021-07-07 Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny Battisti, Davide Bioethics Original Articles Assisted reproductive technologies have greatly increased our control over reproductive choices, leading some bioethicists to argue that we face unprecedented moral obligations towards progeny. Several models attempting to balance the principle of procreative autonomy with these obligations have been proposed. The least demanding is the minimal threshold model (MTM), according to which every reproductive choice is permissible, except creating children whose lives will not be worth living. Hence, as long as the future child is likely to have a life worth living, prospective parents may be allowed to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select embryos with genetic diseases or disabilities. Assuming a consequentialist person‐affecting view of morality, this paper investigates whether the MTM is an appropriate tool to guide procreative decisions given the continuous development of reproductive genetic technologies. In particular, I consider germline genome editing (GGE) and I argue that its application in human reproduction, unlike PGD, should be conceived as person‐affecting towards future progeny. I claim that even if we assume the plausibility of the MTM within PGD, we are committed to accepting that a greater moral obligation towards progeny should guide procreative decisions if GGE were available. In this case, the MTM should no longer be considered an appropriate instrument to guide procreative choices. Finally, I investigate when we face this greater moral obligation, concluding that it applies only when prospective parents have already engaged in the in vitro fertilization process. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021-04-02 2021-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8252484/ /pubmed/33811352 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12871 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Bioethics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Battisti, Davide
Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny
title Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny
title_full Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny
title_fullStr Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny
title_full_unstemmed Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny
title_short Affecting future individuals: Why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny
title_sort affecting future individuals: why and when germline genome editing entails a greater moral obligation towards progeny
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8252484/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33811352
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12871
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