Re: the "not to be born" right

From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Fri Nov 17 2000 - 17:21:13 MST


Yes. Very interesting. We need better rules.

Abortion: we already "kill" tissues, organs, bodies.
So we are already doing "something".

Cloning: if I were a clone I'd be very depressed (knowing it).

Perhaps, the best theoretical tool is "potentiality".

scerir

Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> wrote:

> There was a case in the Ohio Supreme Court not long ago along similar
> lines, where parents sued doctors for not telling them that their
> child had spina bifida so they could have aborted it.
>
> I think these cases may pave the road for some interesting legal
> developments. It seems we will need some better rules for the legal
> interaction between unconceived, unborn and born children and their
> parents when reproductive technology spreads and advances.
>
> For example, should parents be allowed to add any "enhancement genes"
> to their children? One way of handling this would be to give the
> children the ability to sue their parents for compensation if they
> find their genes unbearable. In order to protect against this, the
> parents would buy insurance while planning the child, and I guess the
> insurance premiums would be proportional to the estimated risk of the
> modifications. This would create a bias against making obviously bad
> or risky choices even without adding much of a legal overhead to the
> process. Of course, getting this kind of system off the ground might
> be another matter.
>
> Thoughts?



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