Abstract

Before we intentionally conceive a child, we are faced with a number of choices which have the potential to influence our future child's quality of life. This fact leads us to ask what obligations we have to our future children. In this thesis, I search for a principle which we can use in order to define our obligations to our future children and to guide our procreative choices. ;I argue that we should use Derek Parfit's consequentialist approach amalgamated with a modified version of James Woodward's rights-based argument in order to make these decisions. Although this approach does not provide us with clear answers in all cases, it shows how important it is, when making procreative choices, to consider the interests of all individuals who will be affected by these choices. I also argue that the kinds of considerations which count for or against a given reproductive choice may be largely irrelevant to a parent's later assessment of the wisdom of that choice, and to the parent's attitude towards the child born as a result of that choice. In particular, we may regret making a morally objectionable choice but not regret the child who was created as a result of that choice. ;The requirement that we consider the interests of already existing individuals also eliminates, in my view, the possibility that we have an obligation to create the best possible children that we can create. Nevertheless, I argue that all of our children, regardless of their abilities deserve to be loved and valued as if they were the best possible children that we could have created. ;Finally, my thesis takes issue with two leading lines of criticism of current reproductive policy. The disability rights critique of reproductive and gene manipulation techniques is faulty, in my view, because it wrongly claims that making judgments about traits that our future children might have reflects negatively on the value of existing individuals with those traits. I also argue that the alleged taint of eugenic intent or effect does not provide us with a sufficient reason to reject a particular reproductive policy