2010 - Keele University

Parents should be allowed to choose future children’s sex, argues ethics expert

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Choosing Tomorrow's Children: The Ethics of Selective Reproduction by Stephen Wilkinson

Posted on 26 February 2010

A bioethics expert has argued that parents should be allowed to use selective reproduction to choose their future child’s gender and to screen out serious disease and disability.

Professor Stephen Wilkinson, of the Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele University in Staffordshire, argues that unless there is a serious sex imbalance in the population (e.g. many more boys than girls) or the decision is motivated by sexist attitudes or beliefs, parents should be allowed to decide the sex of a future child.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 prohibits sex selection of offspring for non-medical reasons.

In his new book, Choosing Tomorrow’s Children: The Ethics of Selective Reproduction, Professor Wilkinson also suggests that prospective parents should be offered all the available tests to avoid diseases or disabilities that cause premature death or serious pain.

Professor Wilkinson said: “Parents often put a lot of effort into influencing how their children will grow up, encouraging some characteristics and discouraging others. But what if parents, or the State, set about trying to influence the future population’s characteristics, not by influencing existing children, but by choosing between different possible future children? This is already happening to some extent and it is important to explore the moral dimensions of this.”
The book also asks what differences there are between what has historically been termed 'eugenics' and contemporary uses of biotechnology to select healthy embryos, and examines the ethical distinction between improving health and other forms of 'enhancement'.

• Choosing Tomorrow’s Children: The Ethics of Selective Reproduction by Stephen Wilkinson is published by Oxford University Press priced £40. ISBN 978-0-19-927396-6 
 
ENDS

Notes for editors:

Stephen Wilkinson is available for interview. Please contact him by e-mail on s.wilkinson@peak.keele.ac.uk Alternatively contact Hannah Hiles, Media & Communications Officer, on 01782 733857 or h.e.hiles@kfm.keele.ac.uk
To request a review copy contact: Rachael Huttly on rachael.huttly@oup.com

Biography:

Stephen Wilkinson joined the Department of Philosophy at Keele University in 1994.  With Eve Garrard, he designed and launched (in 1997) the country’s first MA programme in the Ethics of Social Welfare.  He also directed the development of the UK’s first professional doctorate in Medical Ethics (the DMedEth), which started in 2002.  He was made Professor of Bioethics in 2006.

His most recent research is on reproductive ethics and the regulation of reproductive technologies and has been funded by the Wellcome Trust and the AHRC.

His previous phase of research focussed on the commercial exploitation of the human body and culminated in his first book, Bodies for Sale: ethics and exploitation in the human body trade, published by Routledge in 2003.

He is an editorial board member for several journals including Bioethics, Clinical Ethics, Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, the Journal of Medical Ethics and Res Publica; a member of the AHRC Peer Review College; and formerly a member of the Wellcome Trust’s Biomedical Ethics Funding Panel.  Within Keele, he is Director of the Research Centre for Law, Ethics, & Society and chair of the University’s Research Ethics Committee.

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