Ursinus Intro Ethics Blog - Section A

Blog week #12 begins here -- this is a separator post to help you see which posts to focus on.

All right, I accept Anthony's application that mechanics and electricians are skilled labor and not what he would deem "dummy jobs," – but is there really such a thing as a dummy job? And why why why, given that everyone has been raised to some super-standard of presumably not only high IQ, but high performance in every way, would we not have figured out workaround solutions to what to do with the trash, our septic systems, and bagging our groceries. Can we not have a little more faith in the human race?

Furthermore, let's not simplify the situation. Certainly it's fair to reason that we don't know the whole picture of what we're doing with regards to genetic manipulation. But suppose, for the sake of a thought-experiment, that we could? Where would the problem lie? Given our genes, I would be willing to wager than some people have less maximum potential in certain areas than other people. This would allow for diversity. So why not get everyone to their maximum potential? Does this really threaten homogeneity, or merely a more evolved for of heterogeneity, aided by the best advancements in technology? I don't buy the "we'll all be the same and lose our individuality" scenario. There's more to nurture than nature, so why not give our children our best?

Although I was not in class today, I find the issue of parents being allowed to choose certain characteristics that they want their children to have immoral. Having a baby is not the same as picking out what outfit you want to wear or designing a room in a house. The miracle of life lies in the creation of the baby and if parents are given the power to choose what they want their children to turn out as the miracle is no longer there. It is also unnatural to “play God” in wanting to alter your child’s potential natural appearance. I don’t understand why parents would ever feel the need to pick and choose what type of characteristics they would want their children to have and it seems very selfish to me for them to want to manipulate a baby in this way. I am not against doctors being able to use this technology to cure diseases because it would be helping the baby in the long run. Whereas being able to design the baby is not helping the child it is only playing off of the parents vain intentions.

Humans have started to develop the technology and intelligence to genetically engineer specific traits into new human beings. This ability has created the discussion as to whether the fixing of certain traits is moral or not. While this knowledge presents great possibilities for curing diseases, it also brings about the scary thought of creating a superior race that contains only the traits that are desirable to the maker, whoever the “maker” might be. This is where the situation may get to a place where it could be considered immoral. As we started to mention in class, when a person is genetically engineered by his or her parents, it is solely the decision of the parent/s. When you start changing the trivial traits, such as hair and eye color or intelligence vs. physical ability, it becomes a risk because the child may have wanted some other trait than what the parent chose. In this case, the engineered person has a person to blame for not having the traits that he or she personally desires. In normal reproductive cases, it is a random chance that decides these traits and therefore no one to blame. It seems that when someone engineers a baby, they are thinking about the child as possessing the same personality as themselves; this is not the case, as every person has their own personality separate from anyone else. When it comes to curing a disease such as Parkinson’s before the person is born, it is hard to imagine a case when the engineered person would be angry because they had the procedure done to him or her. I believe that the difference appears in the rights of the child being formed, and they should be able to be whoever they want in their life.

Blog week #11 begins here -- this is a separator post to help you see which posts to focus on.

Blog week #10 begins here -- this is a separator post to help you see which posts to focus on.

In the discussion today, we were talking about how the better education of contraceptive options for women in these eastern cultures would lessen the need of abortions, especially late term abortions. I do not think that this would change much because the need for the abortions does not spring from the education of the women; it springs from the conflict of the society and the culture. The culture of Confucianism states that people should strive to have a family, and that this is the highest good. But then the society forces a family to only have one child. This conflict causes the women to initially think that having a family is a good idea, and therefore not worry about getting pregnant. But after the fact, they realize that it will hurt themselves financially and also hurt others. This causes the emotional conflict leading to abortions later in the pregnancy, when the women finally decide to go through with it. In this way, the need for late abortions in most cases does not come from the inaccessibility of contraceptives, but the conflict in a person’s mind between the importance of the society she lives in and the moral beliefs that she holds. If a woman was never pressured to choose the side she did not agree with, then more pregnancies would be carried the full term because a higher ratio of pregnancies would be women that were positive in their decisions to have a child.

Friday in class many people were agreeing with the position that women should be allowed to have an abortion if they can't support the baby. Thus, the birth of the baby would result in the child growing up in a horrible atmosphere and not having the same opportunities that you and I are accustomed to. Also, that the government shouldn't tell people that they can't abort their baby. I find it ironic that today’s discussion was centered on arguing for life, for the ability to reproduce, even when abortion is legal. The babies that are born in China, those that aren't aborted because the parents want more then one child face the same fate that unwanted children in America face. For example one of the cases presented in the book was about a mother starving herself in order to pay the fine to keep the baby, if the parents can not support themselves how are they going to support two children? The government policy is only in place because China is unable to sustain itself with the population influx. I do not agree with it because of the late term abortions that tend to happen and the outrageous amount of baby girls that are killed. There is no easy way to control population and in fact the opposite is happening in Europe. Europe’s birth rate is declining and has dropped to 1.5 births per women. This is mostly attributed to women waiting until they are much older to have children because they are more focused on their careers first and family second. Although population is a hard thing to control, China needs to come up with a better way to handle the situation and my belief is that without sexual education for men and women, this problem is never going to be solved and will ultimately hinder China’s economic success as a country.

Ridiculous, not-quite-close-enough analogies aside, does Judy Thomson have a point? What kinds of responsibilities does another person's right to live impose upon us? How demanding is morality? What are we required to sacrifice for another person's life? In any case (not just abortion, but in other real-life cases where it requires some sort of sacrifice of or burden upon another person to save or improve the life of another), how much of oneself is one required to give? Where is the line to be drawn that says "I am morally required to give this up to help this person, but I am not morally required to give that up to help that person"? These are the questions we have been trying to answer in class, and we seem to be at a stalemate with no one right answer.

In the specific case of abortion, however, (not some general case of "How much am I required to sacrifice of my own time, energy, resources, and health to help the suffering of another person?") I believe there is a very, very important distinction. Rape excluded, two people choose to engage in sexual activity. Everyone who makes this choice (with the possible exception of the twelve-year-old who "doesn't know any better" or the mentally-impaired person who is actually incapable of understanding) knows that there is a possibility of conceiving a child when you have sex. Ignorance is not a plausible excuse for your average person. Sex causes pregnancy. That's what it does. I mostly agree with what Joanna and Chris said in class-- that that is its main purpose. Obviously it has other very important uses as well, but the lack of intent to procreate does not take away the possibility of conception.

Therefore, I believe the average person (and by "average person," I mean someone who understands cause and effect, and who also has not been raised by wolves, but rather in the presence of some degree of civilization) cannot deny the possiblity of pregnancy as a result of sex and should not avoid responsibility for this direct consequence of their actions/conscious choices by just blipping it out of existence. I think it is irresponsible to murder/remove a child/embryo/clump-of-cells and dismiss it as an unfortunate consequence of a conscious decision that was made on the part of the parents/DNA-donors. (I'm trying to cater to both pro-life and pro-choice terminology so bear with the choppiness of that sentence please. I hope you could follow it all right.)

I'm going to be completely honest with you. Before reading these pieces and talking about them in class, I was pro-choice. I didn't think that it was the government's place to put restrictions on what a woman can and cannot do with her own body. I still stand by that belief that it is NOT the government's place to take a definitive stand on this issue and outlaw abortion or make it so readily available that anybody who just doesn't feel like dealing with thinking about it can get an abortion. This is not an issue for the government to decide. However, this is most certainly an issue for morality to decide. Or at least that's what I think...

Blog week #9 begins here -- this is a separator post to help you see which posts to focus on.