Abstract

Procreative liberty, the freedom to decide whether to have or to avoid having children, is emerging as a principal ethical framework for thinking about the application of new reproductive and genetic technologies. Despite its apparent appropriateness to the problem, the scope and meaning of the appeal to procreative liberty regarding reproductive choice and genetic selection have not been fully explored. This dissertation specifically engages the appeal to freedom from interference in the intentional design of progeny--called "children of choice"--through a biphasic analysis of the right to procreative liberty and a subsequent consideration of its concrete employ in prenatal genetic selection. The first investigative phase analyzes on a Hohfeldian grid the right to procreative liberty as construed by its impassioned defender, John A. Robertson. Contrary to the pervasive view of procreative liberty as a claim to noninterference in reproductive choice, Hohfeldian parsing identifies two forms of reproductive freedom--the strong syntax of claim and the weak syntax of liberty. In order to discern which syntax is operative in any given instance of the assertion of procreative liberty, the second analytic phase subjects these forms to teleologic scrutiny through the lens of "shaping the future" as derived from the ethical theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It is argued that this future-sensitive perspective renders a more accurate model of procreative liberty than that based on present choice and claim. On the basis of this biphasic analysis, a dialectical model of procreative liberty is proposed and defended. The procreative liberty dialectic holds the claim form and the liberty form in tension and posits that concern for how the coming generation is to live ought to determine the relevant strength of the right in any particular reproductive-genetic context. This dialectical model is further developed specifically in regard to children of choice. The substantive criterion of shaping the future on behalf of the coming generation is advanced and subsequently applied to a variation of Parfit's teratogenic medicine case