Sheldon and Wilkinson

1. Sheldon and Wilkinson Should Saviour Siblings be Banned?

2. Embryo selection • HLA (human leucocyte antigen) – “tissue typing” – in conjunction with pre0implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to pick an embryo that could act as a saviour sibling for a child. • E.g., Hasmis case in UK: Their son, Zain, had thalassaemia (a blood disorder that can be cured by using tissue from the umbilical cord of the sibling) • Cases where organs or, e.g., bone marrow, of a sibling raise even more issues.

3. Burden of proof • It’s on those who want to prohibit such procedures because allowing it would save children’s lives. • 3 prohibitionist arguments • 1. using saviour sibling as a mere means to an end -- comodification. • 2. movement toward “designer babies.” • 3. worries about the welfare of savour siblings.

4. Means, Ends, and Commodification • Kant and treating people partially vs. solely as a means to an end. • We have children for all sorts of reasons that do not revolve only on the child. E.g., to complete a family. To have a playmate for Jenny. To save your marriage. So long as you avoid having a child only for that instrumental reason, there is no moral violation of Kant’s imperative.

5. Designer babies and slippery slopes • Two types of slope • 1. Allowing something that is either OK or only slightly bad (e.g., saviour siblings) will inevitably or very likely lead to much worse things (e.g., eye colour or sex) • 2. reductio ad absurdum. You can`t distinguish morally from allowing saviour siblings from allowing genetic manipulation for other things (eye colour). So allowing saviour siblings commits you to genetic manipulation for things like eye colour. The later is an absurd position, though, so we must reject saviour siblings.

6. Responding to slippery slope arguments • A. re both args.: reject claim that allowing people to choose embryos is wrong. They don`t discuss this further) • B. re consequence based arg.: allowing saviour siblings will not lead to being permissive about designer babies. • C. re. reductio arg.: saviour siblings and designer babies are relevantly different hence no reduction to absurdity by allowing saviour siblings.

7. Re. B • Where`s the evidence that one will lead to the other. • Can`t laws & regulations be created to prevent slip. • Designer babies require lots of embryos and are more expensive and inconvenient to women, so they may well choose saviour siblings but not designer babies.

8. Re. C • The reasons for having a saviour sibling are serious – saving a child`s life while the reasons for a designer baby are trivial. • Hence, there is a relevant different between the two and we are not committed to designer babies by being committed to saviour siblings.

9. The welfare of the child • We are morally obligated to be concerned about the welfare of any created child using any form of new reproductive technology. • What type of harm might saviour siblings be subject to. • Physical: But no reason to think that saviour siblings will be at physical risk or at least not more than the use of PGD in general. • What`s the baseline. How can someone be benefitted by an event that caused them not to exist.

10. The welfare of the child • Psychological: that the saviour sibling will be psychologically scarred because they were brought into existence to save their sibling`s life. • But this could be thought of positively as easily as negatively. • Even if, on average, saviour siblings are less happy than non-saviour siblings, this wouldn`t necessarily mean that we would have to ban them. (What of fetuses we discover with other abnormalities – deafness, down`s, etc.) or, e.g., who were very poor. Would we be obligated to abort them on the basis of this argument.)