3.16.2011

New Somerville article

Great new article from my hero Margaret Somerville of McGill on "Designer Children" or rather the Rights of Children. (hat tip FamilyScholars)
I propose that the most fundamental human right of all is a child’s right to be born from natural human biological origins and that children have human rights with respect to knowing who their biological parents and families are, and these rights must be recognized.
"Natural human biological origins" means from a man and a woman's unmodified gametes, not from stem cell derived artificial gametes or from two men or two women or cloned or whatever else.

This is great timing for Professor Somerville to remind us that same-sex couples just don't and should not have the right to have offspring together. When Congress debates DOMA, they should all take this issue into account. They should not inadvertently throw open the door to designer babies and a huge regulated or unregulated genetic engineering industry. Rather, they should recognize the right of children to be born from natural human origins by prohibiting creating children from unnatural origins, and preserve the natural right of marriage to create offspring, and recognize state civil unions that are defined as "marriage minus conception rights" as marriage for federal purposes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh YAAAAAAAAWN, margeret who???