This article discusses an anomaly in the English law of reproductive liability: that is, an inconsistency between the law’s approach to wrongful life claims and its approach to cases of negligent selection of gametes or embryos in infertility treatments (the selection cases). The article begins with an account of the legal position, which brings into view the relevant inconsistency: while the law treats wrongful life claims as non- actionable, it recognises a cause of action in the selection (...) cases, although the selection cases bear a relevant resemblance to wrongful life claims. The article then considers arguments that may be invoked in an attempt to reconcile the above two strands of the law. Three of these counterarguments consist in attempts to distinguish the selection cases from wrongful life claims. It is argued that these attempts fail to reveal a valid basis for treating these situations differently. A fourth possible counterargument levels against the present analysis a charge of reductio ad absurdum. It is shown that this argument suffers from a fundamental flaw caused by confusion between different senses of the term “identity”. Finally, the article discusses possible changes to the legal position that could rectify the problem. It argues that one of these changes, which focuses on legal redress for violation of personal autonomy, is particularly apt to resolve the problem at hand, but also highlights the need for further inquiry into the broader implications of introducing this form of redress into the law of torts. (shrink)

Three-way baby making is not new: genetic surrogacy existed in Biblical times and donor insemination was recorded in Britain over 200 years ago. However, the gift of gametes between women breaks all social conventions. This paper examines the phenomenon of gamete-donation questioning whether a ‘gift’ of such magnitude can ever be ‘free’ (as the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority advocates), or a ‘true’ gift (in Derridian terms). Exploration of this unprecedented ‘gift’ from a psychoanalytic approach is supplemented by an (...) interdisciplinary one, drawing on the gift literature in philosophy, anthropology, ethnography and socioeconomics, as well as neonatal research and reproductive medicine. Critics note the dearth of analyses that take seriously the psychological ramifications of contemporary treatments, protocols and expectations in reproductive medicine. Based on psychoanalytic therapy within a clinical practice devoted to reproductive issues, the author argues that institutionalised asexual reproduction alters unconscious conceptualisations of the act of procreation – converting the passionate intimacy of primal scene into a clinical coupling of gametes in a mechanised arena. The author argues that, too charged to contemplate, the gamete's transcendent quality and blurring of elementary personae/res distinctions leads protagonists, including professionals, to defensive commodification. Multiple emotional meanings are ascribed to gifted gametes by each in the triangle of donor, recipient and offspring, illustrated here with verbatim material. This article addresses some of the far-reaching socio-political consequences for class, race, age, gender and sexuality of asexual reproduction, related to selection procedures and uneven global and local distribution of fertility treatment and its cost in financial, physical, practical and emotional terms. Similarly, feminist unease over (patriarchal) reproductive control and gatekeeping policies are considered, as well as ethical concerns over genetic manipulation, pre-implantation screening, sex selection, selective foetocide and potential exploitation of transnational donors and surrogates. (shrink)

Certain interventions now permit the derivation of mammalian gametes from stem cells cultivated from either somatic cells or embryos. These gametes can be used in an indefinite cycle of conception in vitro, gamete derivation, conception in vitro, and so on, producing genetic generations that live only in vitro. One commentator has described this prospect for human beings as eugenics, insofar as it would allow for the selection and development of certain traits in human beings. This commentary not only (...) offers this topic for discussion, it also wades into the ethical fray over the practice. Several possible lines of objection can be raised against this practice, but these accounts are by and large insufficient as an ethical analysis of this possible, future way of conceiving human children. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a description of how authors publishing in medical ethics journals have made use of empirical research data in papers on the topic of gamete or embryo donation by means of references to studies conducted by others. Rather than making a direct contribution to the theoretical methodological literature about the role empirical research data could play or should play in ethics studies, the focus is on the particular uses of these data and the problems that (...) can be encountered with this use. In the selection of papers examined, apart from being used to describe the context, empirical evidence was mainly used to recount problems that needed solving. Few of the authors looked critically at the quality of the studies they quoted, and several instances were found of empirical data being used poorly or inappropriately. This study provides some initial baseline evidence that shows empirical data, in the form of references to studies, are sometimes being used in inappropriate ways. This suggests that medical ethicists should be more concerned about the quality of the empirical data selected, the appropriateness of the choice for a particular type of data and the correct integration of this evidence in sound argumentation. Given that empirical data can be misused also when merely cited instead of reported, it may be worthwhile to explore good practice requirements for this type of use of empirical data in medical ethics. (shrink)

Recent scientific advances in the field of gene editing have led to a renewed discussion on the moral acceptability of human germline modifications. Gene editing methods can be used on human embryos and gametes in order to change DNA sequences that are associated with diseases. Modifying the human germline, however, is currently illegal in many countries but has been suggested as a ‘last resort’ option in some reports. In contrast, preimplantation genetic diagnosis is now a well-established practice within reproductive medicine. (...) Both methods can be used to prevent children from being born with severe genetic diseases. This paper focuses on four moral concerns raised in the debate about germline gene editing and applies them to the practice of PGD for comparison: Violation of human dignity, disrespect of the autonomy and the physical integrity of the future child, discrimination of people living with a disability and the fear of slippery slope towards immoral usage of the technology, e.g. designing children for specific third party interests. Our analysis did not reveal any fundamental differences with regard to the four concerns. We argue that with regard to the four arguments analyzed in this paper germline gene editing should be considered morally as acceptable as the selection of genomes on the basis of PGD. However, we also argue that any application of GGE in reproductive medicine should be put on hold until thorough and comprehensive laws have been implemented to prevent the abuse of GGE for non-medical enhancement. (shrink)

For couples for whom assisted reproduction is the only way to have genetically related offspring, the donation of gametes by others makes available enhanced reproductive options. There has been an increasing demand for such services, as evidenced by the Web site launched by fashion photographer Ron Harris in the fall of 1999. Although the sale of such gametes is not new, this Web site does speak to a different set of priorities and values than has been witnessed in the context (...) of assisted reproduction: the selection of particular traits, in effect, the creation of designer babies. With the expanding demand for such services come expanded liabilities, which are the focus of this article. The author argues that this kind of commodification of gametes reinforces dubious social attitudes, leads to potential harms for the children created by this technology, and suggests a departure from traditional paradigms in medicine: a departure in an ill-advised direction. (shrink)

Scientists are developing a technique called in vitro gametogenesis or IVG to generate synthetic gametes for research and, potentially, for treating infertility. What would it mean for feminist concerns over the future of reproductive practice and biotechnological development if egg and sperm cells could be produced in laboratory conditions? In this article, I take on the question by discussing the emerging technique of IVG through the speculative feminist analysis of ambiguous reproductive futures. Feminist cultural and science studies scholars have explored (...) the transformative effects of biomedicine on reproduction through science fiction novels and other cultural products. I theorise the speculative and visionary in biomedicine in the context of ethnographic methodology by drawing on ‘thought experiments’ conducted with stem cell scientists as shared acts of future-oriented contemplation. I develop the figure of SF proposed by Donna Haraway to investigate how science facts and speculative fabulation together shape futurities of reproduction. I propose including shifting frontiers in feminist thinking of the SFs in bioscience. Biomedical research aims to shift the borders between what is known and not known in reproductive biology, subsequently raising new technical, ethical and political issues in terms of stratified reproduction. The article shows that synthetic gametes are anticipated to intensify selective procreation. Simultaneously, IVG is seen to forge new biogenetic relationships and possibilities for non-normative reproduction and kin-making. Following Haraway, I argue that by ‘staying with the trouble’ of these biotechnological visions, feminist speculative analytics on technoscience offers a valuable tool to envision more hopeful and equal futures together with scientists. (shrink)

This article utilizes three premises. There are commonly ecologically oriented, naturally selected specialized differences in frequency and/or quality as well as sexually selected differences between the sexes. Sex in the sense of coming together and going apart or going apart and coming together is trade in these naturally selected differences, i.e., there is a mating market in sexual species. While such trade is beneficial to the population as a whole, sexual competition and selection is conflict over the profits of (...) that trade and can be detrimental to the population as a whole. These premises yield a naturally selected sex allocation theory of the possible directions and forms of sexual selection, i.e., one that includes costs as well as frequencies. This can explain conventional sex roles, the sex-role reversed, inter- as well as intrasexual selection, and passive as well as active choice. Any of these alternatives may be over mates, over gametes, or both. A hypothetical example based on density dependence relative to resources is provided, one that suggests that centrioles may be a cytoplasmic resource in males in multicellular animals, and which are the target of active choice and the mechanism of manipulation in passive female choice. As a whole, the approach yields a truly general theory of sexual selection, provides an alternative to the mechanism for Fisher’s principle, and gives a theoretical explanation for Mayr’s biological species definition. (shrink)

argues that when reproduction is sexual, natural selection can explain why individual organisms possess the traits they do. In stating his argument Matthen makes use of a conception of individual organisms as receptacles for collections of genes—a conception that cannot do the work Matthen requires of it. Either these receptacles are abstract objects, such as bare possibilities for organisms, or they are concrete. The first reading is too weak, since it allows selection to explain individual traits in both (...) sexual and asexual contexts. The only concrete entities we might think of as receptacles for collections of genes are male or female gametes. It is true that in the sexual context selection explains why an individual gamete combines with a second gamete of one type rather than another; however, this is not to say that selection explains why an individual organism has the traits it does. (shrink)

It is argued that the policy of excluding from further life some human gametes and pre-embryos as "unfit" for existence is not at odds with a defensible idea of human equality. Such an idea must be compatible with the obvious fact that the "functional" value of humans differs, that their "use" to themselves and others differs. A defensible idea of human equality is instead grounded in the fact that as this functional difference is genetically determined, it is nothing which makes (...) humans deserve or be worthy of being better or worse off. Rather, nobody is worth a better life than anyone else. This idea of equality is, however, not applicable to gametes and pre-embryos, since they are not human beings, but something out of which human beings develop. (shrink)

This imaginative guide to decision-making about prenatal genomics is situated in a not-too-distant future in which parents can easily choose among embryos from gametes that have been produced in a laboratory using their own skin cells. Readers are invited into a future vision of conscientious parenting that involves testing to protect, rather than to select, a future child.

Brazil has not yet approved legislation on assisted reproduction. For this reason, clinics, hospitals and semen banks active in the area follow Resolution 1358/92 of the Conselho Federal de Medicina, dated 30 September 1992. In respect to semen donation, the object of this article, the Resolution sets out that gamete donation shall be anonymous, that is, that the donor and recipients (and the children who might subsequently be born) shall not be informed of each other's identity. Thus, since recipients (...) are unaware of the donor's identity, semen banks and the medical teams involved in assisted reproduction become the intermediaries in the process. The objective of this article is to show that, in practice, this represents disrespect for the ethical principles of autonomy, privacy and equality. The article also stresses that the problem is compounded by the racial question. In a country like Brazil, where racial classification is so flexible and goes side by side with racist attitudes, the intermediary role played by semen banks and medical teams is conditioned by their own criteria of racial classification, which are not always the same as those of donors and semen recipients. The data presented in this paper were taken from two semen banks located in the city of São Paulo (Brazil). At the time of my research, they were the only semen banks in the state of São Paulo and supplied semen to the capital (São Paulo city), the state of São Paulo, and to cities in other Brazilian states where semen banks were not available. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBrazil has not yet approved legislation on assisted reproduction. For this reason, clinics, hospitals and semen banks active in the area follow Resolution 1358/92 of the Conselho Federal de Medicina, dated 30 September 1992. In respect to semen donation, the object of this article, the Resolution sets out that gamete donation shall be anonymous, that is, that the donor and recipients shall not be informed of each other's identity. Thus, since recipients are unaware of the donor's identity, semen banks (...) and the medical teams involved in assisted reproduction become the intermediaries in the process. The objective of this article is to show that, in practice, this represents disrespect for the ethical principles of autonomy, privacy and equality. The article also stresses that the problem is compounded by the racial question. In a country like Brazil, where racial classification is so flexible and goes side by side with racist attitudes, the intermediary role played by semen banks and medical teams is conditioned by their own criteria of racial classification, which are not always the same as those of donors and semen recipients. The data presented in this paper were taken from two semen banks located in the city of São Paulo . At the time of my research, they were the only semen banks in the state of São Paulo and supplied semen to the capital , the state of São Paulo, and to cities in other Brazilian states where semen banks were not available. (shrink)

The genetic communication system includes the following components: the parent, which represents the information source and which emits messages; the gametes, which are the messenger carriers; and the offspring, which results from the decoding of two of these messages and can, in turn, become an information source.In a diploid species, a pair of heterozygous homologous loci may emit two equally probable messages, the quantity of genetic information (Q) produced being equivalent to: Q=log2 2=1 bit. For n independent pairs of heterozygous (...) homologous loci, Q=n.log2 2=n bits. The evolution of Q is examined whenever the parent is used in inbreeding or crossbreeding. In the case of inbreeding, the initial Q is depleted as the loci become homozygous; for hybridization the evolution of Q is unpredictable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Changing Human Nature: Ecology, Ethics, Genes, and God by James C. PetersonDolores L. ChristieChanging Human Nature: Ecology, Ethics, Genes, and God James C. Peterson Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010. 259 pp. $18.00Grounding himself in the Christian tradition, James Peterson argues for the moral efficacy of human genetic manipulation. Interpreting intentional intervention as part of human stewardship rather than as a wrongful interference with some divine plan, he takes (...) on the sticky questions, making critical distinctions, for example, between cure and enhancement or welcoming children as they come and making them “better.” Not neglecting future implications of current tinkering with human biology, even in such taboo areas as gamete selection, he contends that engineering a baby free of harmful genes (for example, Tay-Sachs or Down syndrome) not only makes that person better, but it also eliminates an ongoing burden to family, to society, and perhaps to future generations. Treading gingerly among the sacred cows of some Christian ethicists, he advocates the implanting of selected embryos free of unwanted genes; in his view, embryos are not yet persons.Peterson considers serious concerns such as eugenics projects and racial bias but offers standards to address them. He contends that intentionally increasing choices for our children is not only acceptable but also praiseworthy. What parents would not optimize the educational and social opportunities for their child, even without the child’s consent? Interventions should be safe, offer genuine improvement, increase the recipient’s capacity, and make the best use of limited resources. Peterson is not so naive that he does not recognize that technology does not always make us better. He recognizes, too, that his standards do not eliminate risk.Fair enough, but the issue of what “improvement” may mean to the individual as well as to the greater community remains somewhat ambiguous. Peterson suggests that broadening the decision making among a variety of professional and individual cohorts would help, but his argument is not totally persuasive. In sum, Peterson’s treatment falls short of offering a totally satisfying standard for determining which characteristics should be manipulated and which should be accepted. Nor does he demonstrate definitively how a [End Page 187] Christian perspective would contribute to sorting out possible choices. Does the deaf parents’ desire for their child to be deaf like them constitute an instance where intervention should not be attempted? Can the disparate cohorts he suggests as arbiters rise above their own biases? Does Christianity and its belief system offer answers? Readers—even readers who call themselves Christian—will likely be persuaded that genetic intervention is a good, and even compatible with their religious perspective. Nonetheless, they will harbor lingering doubts about how the questions can best be solved, who should solve them, and how Christian belief helps sort among the possibilities. In his closing comments Peterson appears to agree.The book is rich in research and in provocative ideas. It is an exciting book. It is a readable and enlightened contribution to the professional conversation on gene therapy. Peterson’s research is extensive, his argumentation balanced. His attempt to locate the question within the Christian tradition is laudable. Happily, Peterson eschews a creationist approach to world and human origins. Unhappily, his approach to the scriptural text is not always nuanced. His assertion that Jesus himself was different biologically from other human beings (132) seems a stretch. If one takes the passages of Jesus’s biological origins literally, as apparently does the author, what happens to the assertion that Jesus is like other human beings “in all things but sin”? And where did Jesus get the Y chromosomes? While he persuades the reader that genetic intervention is compatible with a Christian worldview, Peterson does not offer—at least in this reviewer’s view—an adequate criterion for navigating this new world of the possible.Dolores L. ChristieJohn Carroll UniversityCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The male gametes of most organisms lack cytoplasm. Consequently, most cytoplasmic genetic elements are maternally inherited: they cannot be transmitted patrilinnearly. The evolutionary interests of cytoplasmic elements therefore lie in transmission through the female. These elements may thus be in evolutionary conflict with nuclear genes which are transmitted by both sexes. This conflict is manifested in observations of cytoplasmically induced biased sex‐ratios. Some cytoplasmic genes avoid this fate by biasing the primary sex ratio towards females, or by inducing parthenogenesis. Others (...) kill male hosts, and either achieve transmission via dispersal, or benefit their clonal relatives in the dead male's female siblings. Still others cause the failure of zygotes resulting from pairings between males carrying specific microbes and females lacking them, causing an increase in the microbes through the sterilisation of non‐bearing females. Many, but not all, of these ‘ultra‐selfish’ microbes are closely related. Investigations of the significance of their phylogenetic affinities, or lack of them, their adaptability in terms of the methods by which they avoid, or ameliorate, the adverse effects of being in male hosts, and their importance as selective agents in the evolution of invertebrate sex determination systems, provide fertile spheres for future research. (shrink)

The Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB) holds that when a couple plans to have a child, they have significant moral reason to select, of the possible children they could have, the child who is most likely to experience the greatest wellbeing – that is, the most advantaged child, the child with the best chance at the best life.1 PB captures the common sense intuitions of many about reproductive decisions. PB does not posit an absolute moral obligation – it does not (...) dictate what people must do. Instead it holds that there is a significant moral reason to select the best child, but one that must be weighed against other reasons.Recent research suggests that it may become possible to derive gametes (eggs and sperm) from human stem cells in vitro, a process which we will term in vitro gametogenesis (IVG). The ability to create large numbers of eggs or sperm through IVG greatly increases our capacity to select the best child possible. (shrink)

John Harsanyi and John Rawls both used the veil of ignorance thought experiment to study the problem of choosing between alternative social arrangements. With his ‘impartial observer theorem’, Harsanyi tried to show that the veil of ignorance argument leads inevitably to utilitarianism, an argument criticized by Sen, Weymark and others. A quite different use of the veil-of-ignorance concept is found in evolutionary biology. In the cell-division process called meiosis, in which sexually reproducing organisms produce gametes, the chromosome number is halved; (...) when meiosis is fair, each gene has only a fifty percent chance of making it into any gamete. This creates a Mendelian veil of ignorance, which has the effect of aligning the interests of all the genes in an organism. This paper shows how Harsanyi's version of the veil-of-ignorance argument can shed light on Mendelian genetics. There turns out to be an intriguing biological analogue of the impartial observer theorem that is immune from the Sen/Weymark objections to Harsanyi's original. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.SOCIAL JUSTICE, GENOMIC JUSTICE AND THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE: HARSANYI MEETS MENDELVolume 28, Issue 1Samir Okasha DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267112000119Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. SOCIAL JUSTICE, GENOMIC JUSTICE AND THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE: HARSANYI MEETS MENDELVolume 28, Issue 1Samir Okasha DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267112000119Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. SOCIAL JUSTICE, GENOMIC JUSTICE AND THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE: HARSANYI MEETS MENDELVolume 28, Issue 1Samir Okasha DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267112000119Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

What is it for an animal to be female, or male? An emerging consensus among philosophers of biology is that sex is grounded in some manner or another on anisogamy, that is, the ability to produce either large gametes (egg) or small gametes (sperm), though the exact nature of this grounding remains contentious. Here we argue for a new conception of this relation. In our view, one’s sex doesn’t depend on the kind of gamete one is capable of making, (...) but on the kind of gamete one is designed to make, where design is understood in terms of an evolutionary or ontogenetic selection process. Specifically, we argue that what it is to be, say, male, is to have a part or process that has the (proximal or distal) biological function of producing sperm. We outline and defend our view, and sketch some implications for scientific and social problems related to sex. (shrink)

Louise Brown's birth in 1978 heralded a new era not just in reproductive technology, but in the relationship between science, cells, and society. For the first time, human embryos could be created, selected, studied, manipulated, frozen, altered, or destroyed, outside the human body. But with this possibility came a plethora of ethical questions. Is it acceptable to destroy a human embryo for the purpose of research? Or to create an embryo with the specific purpose of destroying it for research? In (...) an attempt to construct ethical and legal frameworks for the new era of cellular reprogramming, legislators and ethicists have tried to distinguish between different kinds of biological entity. We treat cells differently depending on whether they are human or animal, somatic cells or gametes, and on whether they are embryos or not. But this approach to the ethics of cellular reprogramming is doomed to failure for the simple reason that cellular reprogramming in itself destroys the distinctions that the law requires to function. In this article, we explore the historical trajectory of cellular reprogramming and its relationship with ethics and society. We suggest that the early hype of embryo research has not obviously fulfilled expectations, but since new avenues of research are continuously opening, it is hard to say definitely that these promises have been broken. We explore the forthcoming challenges posed by the creation of DNA from scratch in the laboratory, and the implications of this for understandings of identity, privacy, and reproduction. We conclude that while ethics used to seek answers in biological facts, this is no longer possible, and a new approach is required. (shrink)

Sciences able to identify appropriate analytical units for their domain, their natural kinds, have tended to be more progressive. In the biological sciences, evolutionary natural kinds are adaptations that can be identified by their common history of selection for some function. Human brains are the product of an evolutionary history of selection for component systems which produced behaviours that gave adaptive advantage to their hosts. These structures, behaviour production systems, are the natural kinds that psychology seeks. We argue (...) these can be identified deductively by classing behaviour first according to its level of behavioural control. Early animals in our lineage used only reactive production, Vertebrates evolved motivation, and later Primates developed executive control. Behaviour can also be classified by the type of evolutionary benefit it bestows: it can deliver either immediate benefits (food, gametes), improvements in the individual’s position with respect to the world (resource access, social status), or improvements in the ability to secure future benefits (knowledge, skill). Combining history and function implies the existence of seven types of behaviour production systems in human brains responsible for reflexive, instinctual, exploratory, driven, emotional, playful and planned behaviour. Discovering scientifically valid categories of behaviour can provide a fundamental taxonomy and common language for understanding, predicting and changing behaviour, and a way of discovering the organs in the brain––its natural kinds––that are responsible for behaviour. (shrink)

A series of recent scientific results suggest that, in the not-too-distant future, it will be possible to create viable human gametes from human stem cells. This paper discusses the potential of this technology to make possible what I call ‘in vitro eugenics’: the deliberate breeding of human beings in vitro by fusing sperm and egg derived from different stem-cell lines to create an embryo and then deriving new gametes from stem cells derived from that embryo. Repeated iterations of this process (...) would allow scientists to proceed through multiple human generations in the laboratory. In vitro eugenics might be used to study the heredity of genetic disorders and to produce cell lines of a desired character for medical applications. More controversially, it might also function as a powerful technology of ‘human enhancement’ by allowing researchers to use all the techniques of selective breeding to produce individuals with a desired genotype. (shrink)

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008: a missed opportunity?Amel AlghraniCorrespondence to Dr Amel Alghrani, Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation, Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, School of Law, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL; [email protected] 16 September 2009 Accepted 24 September 2009 Regulating reproduction is no easy feat. In the past three decades we have witnessed a reproductive revolution and great strides have been made to alleviate the effects of infertility. Reproductive advances such as in-vitro fertilisation (...) , sex selection, reproductive cloning and embryo selection for the purpose of creating “saviour siblings” have all emerged as part of a rapid and ever-changing branch of medicine, each promising to upset the status quo and transform human reproduction.Following much activity in this area, the lengthy process of updating the legislation is now complete. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 received Royal Assent on 13 November 2008. The majority of the HFE Act 2008’s amendments will come into force in October of this year, with the exception of the provisions pertaining to parenthood, which commenced in April 2009. Welcoming Royal Assent, Professor Lisa Jardine, Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, stated:“This is a momentous day for the HFEA and for those with fertility problems. The regulatory system that has served us so well has been renewed. Parliament has provided a clear framework for the future and a solid base on which to regulate 21st century practice within 21st century law.”1However, as scientific endeavours into developments such as artificial gametes, womb transplantation and ectogenesis continue apace, it could be argued that Jardine was perhaps overly optimistic about the achievements of the new legislation. The HFE Act 2008 is an amending statute, and as Jackson 2 notes “much of the regulatory architecture” in the 1990 legislation “remains intact”. In retaining the architecture of the 1990 legislation, and merely amending or adding certain provisions, has the government missed an ideal opportunity to consider how to equip the regulatory framework for the next phase/era of assisted reproduction?The next …. (shrink)

This essay examines the arguments for and against working towards the objective of human germ line engineering for medical purposes. Germ line changes which result as a secondary consequence of other well designed and ethically acceptable manipulations of somatic cells to cure an otherwise fatal disease can be seen as acceptable. More serious objections apply to intentional germ line interventions because of the unacceptability of using a person solely as a vehicle for creating uncertain genetic change in his descendants. It (...) is also morally unacceptable to use the promise of future benefit to experiment on fetuses or embryos when other more effective technologies exist to help parents have healthy children. Using new genetic technologies to select desirable genotypes among gametes is less problematic and affords a promising new technique for avoiding intergenerational harms. Keywords: embryo research, germ line manipulation, intergenerational ethics, secondary germ line effects CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In ‘in vitro eugenics’ (IVE), I outlined a theoretical use of a technology of artificial gametogenesis, wherein repeated iterations of the derivation of gametes from embryonic stem cells, followed by the fusion of gametes to create new embryos, from which new stem cells could be derived, would allow researchers to create multiple generations of human embryos in the laboratory and also to produce ‘enhanced’ human beings with desired traits. As a number of commentators observed, my purpose in publishing this paper (...) was to provoke ethical discussion of a largely unremarked upon technological possibility and surrounding issues. Even if this was, as Murphy observes archly, to aim ‘low’, discussion of IVE is valuable for three reasons. First, it may render us better prepared should IVE become practical. I noted of my original discussion that it was speculative and several of the respondents suggest that IVE is even less likely to come about than I allowed there. Nevertheless, second, discussion of IVE is valuable for what it reveals about the ethics of new reproductive technologies (NRTs) more generally and, third, about the ethics of genetic human enhancement in particular. The responses to my paper demonstrate this nicely by (a) illustrating the selective way in which arguments about risk are mobilised in debates about NRTs and (b) highlighting the tension between any obligation of ‘procreative beneficence’ and a concern for genetic relatedness. Even if IVE should never be pursued, then, discussion of this possibility may help us better understand the ethics of other NRTs and means of genetic human enhancement. (shrink)

Reproductive medical technology has revolutionized the natural order of human procreation. Accordingly, some have celebrated its advent as a new and liberating determinant of kinship at the global level and advocate it as a right to reproductive health while others have frowned upon it as a vehicle for “guiltless exchange of sexual fluid” and commodification of human gametes. Religious voices from both Christianity and Islam range from unthinking adoption to restrictive use. While utilizing this technology to enable the married couple (...) to have children through the use of their own sexual material is welcome, the use of third party, surrogacy, and reproductive cloning are not in keeping with the sacrosanct principles of kinship, procreation through licit sexual intercourse, and social cohesiveness for building a cohesive family as uphold by both Christianity and Islam. To examine such larger issues emanating from these new ways of human procreation, beyond the question of legality, is a point which legal scholars in both Christianity and Islam, when issuing religious decrees, have not anticipated sufficiently. The article proposes to be an attempt to that end through a qualitative critical content analysis of selected literature written on the subject. (shrink)

The rationale for pursuing the development and use of Germ-Line selection and modification techniques is examined in this essay. The argument is put forth that it is the moral obligation of the medical profession to make available to the public any technology that can cure or prevent pathology leading to death and disability, in both the present and future generations. Society should pursue the development of strategies for preventing or correcting, at the Germ-Line level, genetic features that will lead (...) to, or enhance, pathological conditions. Because prenatal screening and even early embryo screening and selection can prevent only a subset of known genetic disorders, direct genetic intervention is the only way in which certain couples can exercise their rights to reproductive health. Finally, the arguments most often raised against the pursuit of and use of methods for Germ-Line intervention shall be discussed. Keywords: Germ-Line therapy, pre-implantation embryo screening gamete modification, risk and uncertainty CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This article explores the processes through which Australian recipients select unknown donors for use in assisted reproductive technologies and speculates on how those processes may affect the future life of the donor-conceived person. I will suggest that trust is an integral part of the exchange between donors, recipients, and gamete agencies in donor conception and heavily informs concepts of relatedness, race, ethnicity, kinship, class, and visibility. The decision to be transparent about a child’s genetic parentage affects recipient parents’ choices (...) of donor, about who is allowed to “know” children’s genetic backgrounds, and how important it is to be able to “pass” as an unassisted conception. In this way, recipients must trust the process, institutions, and individuals involved in their treatment, as well as place trust in the future they imagine for their child. The current market for donor gametes reproduces normative conceptions of the nuclear family, kinship, and relatedness by facilitating “matching” donors to recipients by phenotype and cultural affinities. Recipient parents who choose not to prioritize “matching,” and actively disclose the process of children’s conceptions, may embark on a project of queering heteronormative family structures and place great trust in both their own children and changing social attitudes to reduce stigma and generate acceptance for non-traditional families. (shrink)

Introduction A Brief Conceptual Framework for Biology PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING NATURE 1. The Antecedents of Scientific Thought Animism, Totemism, and Shamanism The Paleolithic View Mesopotamia Egypt 2. Aristotle and the Greek View of Nature The Science of Animal Biology The Parts of Animals The Classification of Animals The Aristotelian System Basic Questions 3. Those Rational Greeks? Theophrastus and the Science of Botany The Roman Pliny Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine Erasistratus Galen of Pergamum The Greek Miracle 4. The Judeo-Christian Worldview (...) The Bishop of Hippo Scholastic Thought Islamic Science Books on Beasts Antecedents of a Revolution 5. The Revival of Science Andreas Vesalius and the Study of Structure William Harvey and the Study of Function Sir Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration Induction, Hypothesis, Deduction The Very Small--Animalcules Robert Hooke and the Discovery of Cells 6. Figur’d Stones and Plastick Virtue Marine Life on Mountain Tops? Figured Stones of Unknown Creatures Baron Cuvier Quarries of the Paris Basin Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism William Smith and the Geological Column Understanding Nature in 1850 PART TWO: THE GROWTH OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 7. The Paradigm of Evolution First Questions The Paradigm of Natural Theology First Answers 8. Testing Darwins Hypotheses Have Life Forms Changed over Time? Do Species Evolve into Different Species over Time? Has There Been Time Enough for Evolution? Is Natural Selection the Mechanism of Change? The Genetic Basis of Natural Selection Accounting for the Diversity of Life 9. In the Light of Evolution Comparative Anatomy Embryonic Development Classification Microstructure Molecular Processes 10. Life over Time The Origin of Life The Rise of Multicelled Organisms What Is a Phylum? Burgess Shale Metazoans Early Evolution of the Vertebrates The Age of Dinosaurs Birds, Mammals, and Flowering Plants The Rancho La Brea Tar Pits Human Evolution The Role of Extinction in Evolution PART THREE: CLASSICAL GENETICS 11. Pangenesis What Is the Question? Hippocrates and Aristotle The Darwinian Answer Assembling the Data Formulating the Hypothesis by Induction Galton’s Rabbits 12. The Cell Theory The Discovery of Cells: Robert Hooke Schwann and Cells in Animals Gametes as Cells Omnis cellula e cellula? The Technology of Cell Research 13. The Hypothesis of Chromosomal Continuity The Ephemeral Nucleus Schneider, Flemming, and Cell Division The Chromosomes and inheritance Gamete Formation Fertilization 14. Mendel and the Birth of Genetics Model for Monohybrid Crosses Model for Dihybrid Crosses Mendel’s Laws Initial Opposition to Mendelism 15. Genetics + Cytology: 1900-1910 Sutton’s Model The Cytological Basis of Mendel’s Laws Boveri and Abnormal Chromosome Sets Variations in Mendelian Ratios The Discovery of Sex Chromosomes 16. The Genetics of the Fruit Fly Morgan’s First Hypothesis Morgan’s Second Hypothesis The Fly Room Linkage and Crossing-Over The Cytological Proof of Crossing-Over Mapping the Chromosomes The Final Proof The Determinants of Sex The Conceptual Foundations of Classical Genetics 17. The Structure and Function of Genes One Gene, One Enzyme The Substance of Inheritance The Watson-Crick Model of DNA Genes and the Synthesis of Proteins The Genetic Code PART FOUR: THE ENIGMA OF DEVELOPMENT 18. First Principles The Peripatetic Stagirite The Death and Rebirth of Scientific Thought Harvey and Malpighi A Two-Millennial Summing Up Preformation versus Epigenesis 19. The Century of Discovery Von Baer’s Discovery of the Mammalian Ovum Darwin’s Contribution to Embryology Haeckel and Recapitulation 20. Descriptive Embryology Germ Layers The External Development of the Amphibian Embryo The Internal Development of the Amphibian Embryo 21. The Dawn of Analytical Embryology His, Roux, and Mosaic Development Driesch and Regulative Development Novelty in Development Cell Lineage Nucleus or Cytoplasm? Fin de Siècle 22. Interactions during Development Amphibian Organizers Secondary Organizers The Reacting Tissue The Chemical Nature of the Organizer Putting It All Together Conclusion Further Reading References Illustration Credits Index. (shrink)

There is something about the debate over reproductive technologies of all kinds—from coerced use of Norplant to trait-selection technologies, to issues surrounding in vitro fertilization, to fetal tissue transplantation—that seems to invite dubious analogies. A Tennessee trial court termed Mary Sue and Junior Davis's frozen embryos “in vitro children” and applied a best-interests standard in awarding “custody” to Mary Sue Davis; the Warnock Committee drew an implicit analogy between human gametes and transplantable organs in its recommendation of a voluntary, (...) nonprofit system for collecting and distributing gametes in the United Kingdom; Owen Jones compares the right to trait-selection to the right to abortion; Robert Veatch once claimed that if a woman had signed an organ donation card and then died while pregnant, she had in effect given consent to the attempt to sustain the pregnancy after her death; John Robertson has argued that contract pregnancy poses no problems we have not already encountered with adoption; and Andrea Bonnicksen has compared the wonders of preembryonic genetic screening to the riches housed in the gold museum in Bogota, Colombia. (shrink)

There is something about the debate over reproductive technologies of all kinds—from coerced use of Norplant to trait-selection technologies, to issues surrounding in vitro fertilization, to fetal tissue transplantation—that seems to invite dubious analogies. A Tennessee trial court termed Mary Sue and Junior Davis's frozen embryos “in vitro children” and applied a best-interests standard in awarding “custody” to Mary Sue Davis; the Warnock Committee drew an implicit analogy between human gametes and transplantable organs in its recommendation of a voluntary, (...) nonprofit system for collecting and distributing gametes in the United Kingdom; Owen Jones compares the right to trait-selection to the right to abortion; Robert Veatch once claimed that if a woman had signed an organ donation card and then died while pregnant, she had in effect given consent to the attempt to sustain the pregnancy after her death; John Robertson has argued that contract pregnancy poses no problems we have not already encountered with adoption; and Andrea Bonnicksen has compared the wonders of preembryonic genetic screening to the riches housed in the gold museum in Bogota, Colombia. (shrink)

Despite a revived interest in explaining the evolution of anisogamy in recent years (i.e. different—micro and macrogametes), there remain more questions than answers. The topic is important because it is thought to be the foundation of the theory of gender differences and relations. Twelve of these questions are briefly reviewed here—(1) the distinction between sex and sexual types; (2) the distinction between mating types and anisogamy; (3) the possible role of ecological as well as social evolution in proto-gender differences and (...) relations; (4) the life history strategies involved; (5) whether the relevant social relationships are based on conflict or cooperation; (6) the origin and properties of meiosis; (7) the conformity of theories with sex allocation theory; (8) the relevance of multiple levels of selection; (9) appropriate modelling strategies; (10) the relationship between the kind of gametes produced and secondary sexual characteristics; (11) the relevance to humans; and (12) how realistic the search for a single explanation is. It is concluded that polarized sexuality may be a form of trade. (shrink)

The origin of metazoa implies the passage from an eukarote protozoan to a protozygote ancestor of a metazoan zygote. The most probable hypothesis is that of a symbiotic origin of the first zygote by association of two protists one signifying a spherical oocell and the other a flagellated spermatozoan; this could be the first step of the metazoan ontogenesis and therefore also of the phylogenesis. The genesis can also be explained by two haploid genomes NX NY, three gametes (two spermatozoa (...) and one ovule), NX apparently being able to create both forms, and two zygotes. A double symbiosis, a chromosomic crossing-over and a selective expulsion can prove it. (shrink)

Feelings of guilt are human emotions that may arise if a person committed an action that contradicts basic moral mores or failed to commit an action that is considered moral according to their ethical standards and values. Psychological scholarship distinguishes between altruistic guilt (AG) and deontological guilt (DG). AG results from having caused harm to an innocent victim, either by acting or failing to act, whereas DG is caused by violating a moral principle. Although physicians may be expected to experience (...) frequent feelings of guilt in their demanding and intensive work, it is surprising to find that this issue has not been explored in the professional literature on medical ethics. To that end, we conducted a qualitative study that included personal in-depth interviews with Sunni Muslim gynaecologists. These doctors provide underground infertility care and perform religiously forbidden treatments involving sex selection and gamete donation. They opened their hearts and spoke about the emotionally taxing pangs of conscience they suffer. Analysing their narratives led us to characterize their feelings of guilt as DG. We discuss the causes for their plight and the way they cope with it, compare DG to the concept of moral distress, and call for future research on clinicians’ feelings of guilt and pangs of conscience. (shrink)

The principle of procreative beneficence, first suggested by Julian Savulescu, argues that: If couples have decided to have a child, and selection is possible, then they have a significant moral reason to select the child, of the possible children they could have, whose life is expected, in light of the relevant available information, to go best or at least not worse than any of the others. While the validity of this moral principle has been widely contested, in this paper (...) we move away from these issues and grant, for the sake of argument, that PB is a valid moral principle, and that the justification for PB provided by Savulescu and co-authors is sound. We do this in order to explore the implications and consequences of accepting PB and show that even if we put aside questions about the validity and theoretical foundations of this principle, PB has many interesting, astonishing and highly problematic implications that have not been made explicit in the writing of Savulescu and others who support the notion of an obligation to bring to birth the best child possible :204, 2002). We suggest that these implications should be taken into account when considering both the soundness and strength of PB. (shrink)

Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with every tenet of Darwinian theory – that it shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate (...) forms, confers no selective advantage, and would require more evolutionary time and genomic space than is available. We examine these arguments and show that they depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for when a trait should be attributed to natural selection: complex design for some function, and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Human language meets these criteria: Grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the position that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: Communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, language acquisition in the child should systematically differ from language evolution in the species, and attempts to analogize them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process. (shrink)

The Nature of Selection is a straightforward, self-contained introduction to philosophical and biological problems in evolutionary theory. It presents a powerful analysis of the evolutionary concepts of natural selection, fitness, and adaptation and clarifies controversial issues concerning altruism, group selection, and the idea that organisms are survival machines built for the good of the genes that inhabit them. "Sober's is the answering philosophical voice, the voice of a first-rate philosopher and a knowledgeable student of contemporary evolutionary theory. (...) His book merits broad attention among both communities. It should also inspire others to continue the conversation."-Philip Kitcher, Nature "Elliott Sober has made extraordinarily important contributions to our understanding of biological problems in evolutionary biology and causality. The Nature of Selection is a major contribution to understanding epistemological problems in evolutionary theory. I predict that it will have a long lasting place in the literature."-Richard C. Lewontin. (shrink)

We argue that recent empirical findings and theoretical models shed new light on the nature of attention. According to the resulting amplification view, attentional phenomena can be unified at the neural level as the consequence of the amplification of certain input signals of attention-independent perceptual computations. This way of identifying the core realizer of attention evades standard criticisms often raised against sub-personal accounts of attention. Moreover, this approach also reframes our thinking about the function of attention by shifting the focus (...) from the function of selection to the function of amplification. (shrink)

A complete sourcebook for philosophical discussion of the nature of function in biology.

Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? The question of levels of selection - on which biologists and philosophers have long disagreed - is central to evolutionary theory and to the philosophy of biology. Samir Okasha's comprehensive analysis gives a clear account of the philosophical issues at stake in the current debate.

Human cooperation is highly unusual. We live in large groups composed mostly of non-relatives. Evolutionists have proposed a number of explanations for this pattern, including cultural group selection and extensions of more general processes such as reciprocity, kin selection, and multi-level selection acting on genes. Evolutionary processes are consilient; they affect several different empirical domains, such as patterns of behavior and the proximal drivers of that behavior. In this target article, we sketch the evidence from five domains (...) that bear on the explanatory adequacy of cultural group selection and competing hypotheses to explain human cooperation. Does cultural transmission constitute an inheritance system that can evolve in a Darwinian fashion? Are the norms that underpin institutions among the cultural traits so transmitted? Do we observe sufficient variation at the level of groups of considerable size for group selection to be a plausible process? Do human groups compete, and do success and failure in competition depend upon cultural variation? Do we observe adaptations for cooperation in humans that most plausibly arose by cultural group selection? If the answer to one of these questions is “no,” then we must look to other hypotheses. We present evidence, including quantitative evidence, that the answer to all of the questions is “yes” and argue that we must take the cultural group selection hypothesis seriously. If culturally transmitted systems of rules (institutions) that limit individual deviance organize cooperation in human societies, then it is not clear that any extant alternative to cultural group selection can be a complete explanation. (shrink)

Authors frequently refer to gene-based selection in biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens, and operant learning as exemplifying selection processes in the same sense of this term. However, as obvious as this claim may seem on the surface, setting out an account of “selection” that is general enough to incorporate all three of these processes without becoming so general as to be vacuous is far from easy. In this target article, we set out (...) such a general account of selection to see how well it accommodates these very different sorts of selection. The three fundamental elements of this account are replication, variation, and environmental interaction. For selection to occur, these three processes must be related in a very specific way. In particular, replication must alternate with environmental interaction so that any changes that occur in replication are passed on differentially because of environmental interaction. One of the main differences among the three sorts of selection that we investigate concerns the role of organisms. In traditional biological evolution, organisms play a central role with respect to environmental interaction. Although environmental interaction can occur at other levels of the organizational hierarchy, organisms are the primary focus of environmental interaction. In the functioning of the immune system, organisms function as containers. The interactions that result in selection of antibodies during a lifetime are between entities (antibodies and antigens) contained within the organism. Resulting changes in the immune system of one organism are not passed on to later organisms. Nor are changes in operant behavior resulting from behavioral selection passed on to later organisms. But operant behavior is not contained in the organism because most of the interactions that lead to differential replication include parts of the world outside the organism. Changes in the organism's nervous system are the effects of those interactions. The role of genes also varies in these three systems. Biological evolution is gene-based (i.e., genes are the primary replicators). Genes play very different roles in operant behavior and the immune system. However, in all three systems, iteration is central. All three selection processes are also incredibly wasteful and inefficient. They can generate complexity and novelty primarily because they are so wasteful and inefficient. Key Words: evolution; immunology; interaction; operant behavior; operant learning; replication; selection; variation. (shrink)

Life is supported by a myriad of chemical reactions. To describe the overall process we have formulated entropy for an open system undergoing chemical reactions. The entropy formula allows us to recognize various ways for the system to move towards more probable states. These correspond to the basic processes of life i.e. proliferation, differentiation, expansion, energy intake, adaptation and maturation. We propose that the rate of entropy production by various mechanisms is the fitness criterion of natural selection. The quest (...) for more probable states results in organization of matter in functional hierarchies. (shrink)

Given advances in microsurgical techniques, immunomodulation protocols, and neuro-regenerative therapies, there is a growing likelihood that first-in-human whole-eye transplantation (WET) may be at...

In this paper Wimsatt's analysis of units of selection is taken as defining the units of selection question. A definition of levels of selection is offered and it is shown that the levels of selection question is quite different from the units of selection question. Some of the relations between units and levels are briefly explored. It is argued that the levels of selection question is the question relevant to explanatory concerns, and it is (...) suggested that it is the question relevant to ontological concerns. (shrink)