Book Review: JOHN R. SPENCER and ANTJE DU BOIS-PEDAIN (eds), Freedom and Responsibility in Reproductive Choice. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006, 201 pp., ISBN 1841135828, $50.00 (hbk)

DOI10.1177/09646639080170030702
Date01 September 2008
AuthorIlke Ozdemir
Published date01 September 2008
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-18Nc7TGeGjynQL/input BOOK REVIEWS
409
JOHN R. SPENCER and ANTJE DU BOIS-PEDAIN (eds), Freedom and Responsibility in
Reproductive Choice
. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006, 201 pp., ISBN 1841135828,
$50.00 (hbk),
Freedom and Responsibility in Reproductive Choice seeks to advance socio-legal
analysis of the connections between parental reproductive choices and law. The book
comprises 10 essays dealing with complex ethical and regulative questions related to
reproductive responsibilities such as selection of embryos, designer babies, disability,
genetic linkage, parenthood and birthrights. The collection is divided into three parts:
‘The Rights and Wrongs of Reproduction’, ‘Social Conceptions and Legal Regulation
of Families and Family-making’, and ‘Family-making and Reproductive Autonomy
and Parenthood’.
Part I focuses on procreative autonomy and prenatal intervention. In Chapter 1,
Mary Warnock provides the reader with a provocative discussion of the limitations
of the rights-based discourse about reproduction. She distinguishes between claiming
something as a legal right and as a moral right. Drawing a line between the ‘right to
have treatment’ and the ‘right to free treatment’, Warnock argues that being deprived
of the latter is not necessarily an infringement of human rights. Warnock also presents
some speculative perspectives on the creation of a baby as a means medically to benefit
an already living child. She suggests that there is nothing wrong with selecting embryos
by preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to create a child who will act as a donor
for his/her sibling. Warnock further claims that children who donate organs to their
siblings are admired for their heroism. One might argue here that the aspect of altru-
istic heroism is in fact irrelevant because the presumed heroes have little choice but
to be altruistic. In Chapter 2, Thomas Baldwin seeks to explore whether prospective
parents are morally obliged to choose children with the best genetic traits they can
have. Following this...

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