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  • Title: The argument for unlimited procreative liberty: a feminist critique.
    Author: Ryan MA.
    Journal: Hastings Cent Rep; 1990; 20(4):6-12. PubMed ID: 2211090.
    Abstract:
    The arguments for an unlimited right to procreate in John Robertson's "Procreative Liberty and the Control of Conception, Pregnancy, and Childbirth," in "Virginia Law Review" 69 (April, 1983); and "Embryos, Families, and Procreative Liberty: The Legal Structure of the New Reproduction" in "Southern California Law Review" 59 (1986) are looked at from a feminist perspective. The position is mainly based on the importance of procreation for individuals. Emphasis is on the underlying model of procreative liberty, and its consequences for understanding reproduction and attitudes to human being in general, and children in particular. The courts have taken the position of noninterference in procreative decisions, particularly involving married couples. Robertson says that use of technology is acceptable to fulfill a couple's "reproductive goals." It is also all right, Robertson feels, to manipulate the sex of the offspring. The author feels that children are being treated as property when this is done. A contract between parties will decide who the members of the child's family are. Contracts are inadequate, the author feels, and perpetuate a "dangerous" family model. The contractual view of procreative freedom perpetuates and assumes a traditional patriarchal family model. The model has been "dangerous" for women. One of the defects of the unlimited procreative liberty argument is a tendency to divide means from ends. Robertson's concern with the promotion of the procreative initiator's interests is not adequately balanced by a concern for people who will take part as the means to the reproductive goals. We need to pay careful attention to what is being said of personhood, reproductive capacities, and parent-child relations in arguments for unlimited reproductive freedom. We should be aware of the potential for harm of the new reproductive technologies.
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