One prominent argument against the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to select a deaf embryo with the aim of creating a deaf child is that it violates the child’s right to an open future. This paper challenges the open future argument against deaf embryo selection, criticizing its major premise that deafness limits a child’s opportunity range in ways that compromise their future autonomy. I argue that this premise is not justified and is supported by negative presumptions about deaf embodiments that (...) are suspect and in need of further argumentation. First, available interpretations of the open future concept fail to justify the devaluation of deaf traits as inherently autonomy-diminishing. Second, arguing against deaf embryo selection requires demonstrating that a deaf trait generally constrains opportunity ranges independent of social context. But such analyses neglect important social and relational components of autonomy. For these reasons, merely appealing to the child’s right to an open future does not sufficiently support the conclusion that deaf embryo selection is wrong. (shrink)

Drawing on sociological and anthropological studies, the aim of this article is to reconstruct how obstetric technologies contribute to a moral conception of pregnancy and motherhood, and to evaluate that conception from a normative point of view. Obstetrics and midwifery, so the assumption, are value-laden, value-producing and value-reproducing practices, values that shape the social perception of what it means to be a “good” pregnant woman and to be a “good” mother. Activities in the medical field of reproduction contribute to “kinning”, (...) that is the making of particular social relationships marked by closeness and special moral obligations. Three technologies, which belong to standard procedures in prenatal care in postmodern societies, are presently investigated: informed consent in prenatal care, obstetric sonogram, and birth plan. Their widespread application issupposed to serve the moral goal of effecting patient autonomy. A reconstruction of the actual moral implications of these technologies, however, reveals that this goal is missed in multiple ways. Informed consent situations are marked by involuntariness and blindness to social dimensions of decision-making; obstetric sonograms construct moral subjectivity and agency in a way that attribute inconsistent and unreasonable moral responsibilities to the pregnant woman; and birth plans obscure the need for a healthcare environment that reflects a shared-decision-making model, rather than a rational-choice-framework. (shrink)