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by: Jonathan Glover  List Price: $19.95 Amazon.com's Price: $17.95 You Save: $2.00 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 174.957 EAN: 9780199238491 ISBN: 0199238499 Label: Oxford University Press, USA Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 128 Publication Date: February 25, 2008 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Studio: Oxford University Press, USA Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. The renowned moral philosopher and best-selling author Jonathan Glover shows us how we might try to answer this question, and other provoking and disturbing questions to which it leads. Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can? Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilities and disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinking about the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who have these conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. How do we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being? In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness to have a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but a difference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, Jonathan Glover examines the emotive idea of "eugenics", and the ethics of attempting to enhance people, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents be free, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, for instance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distant prospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will such interventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole? Should we try to make general improvements to the genetic make-up of human beings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must not interfere? This beautifully clear book is written for anyone who cares about the rights and wrongs of parents' choices for their children, anyone who is concerned about our human future. Glover handles these uncomfortable questions in a controversial but always humane and sympathetic manner. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Designing the FutureThis short work of three chapters explores the implications of genetic science on the possibilities of designing our children to specifications. It covers the practical possibilities and the attendant moral decisions that apply to our decisions. Much of the discourse on this subject involves the question of what counts as "disabilities" and to what extent are we justified in producing children without them? Delving deeper, Glover asks the fundamental question, "To what do we owe our children?" On ... Read More 
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