For the Love of Children: Genetic Technology and the Future of the Family (Family, Religion, and Culture)

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Choices in reproductive technology have multiplied at a staggering rate. Is our society prepared to decide on issues about procreation (artificial insemination and invitro fertilization) or genetic engineering ("designer children" and selective abortion)? How can we protect children--both born and unborn--who are conceived in these ways from being regarded as merchandise in the expanding marketplace of genetic services? Ted Peters sets out the challenges of these new technologies with clarity and precision. He looks anew at Christian theology and proposes an ethic "for the love of children." Peters contends that only by affirming all children and their claims upon parents will society deal constructively and ethically with the many reproductive choices available now and in the future.

The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.

Like so many Protestant theologians, Peters is led to consider Roman Catholic moral thought in these areas of medical ethics. His background as a systematic theologian allows him to make positive use of both Protestant and Catholic resources in constructing his argument. The gist of that argument is that new reproductive technologies risk making children into commodities--mere products of their parents' choices and financial wherewithal to realize them. The separation of the goals of parents from the good of their prospective children and the application of the measure of what is good for children in these crucial reproductive decisions are the foundation of Peters' proposal for ensuring that such procedures are taken for the love of children.

The subject of commodification and the new reproductives is as timely as it is compelling. One memorable news story not long ago focused on the decision of one couple to advertise for egg donors in the student newspaper at Yale University with the specification that the donor be 5'10" or more in height and have an SAT score of at least 1400. Amid the various doctors and ethicists commenting on the case was a Yale student editor who keenly appreciated the risk of commodification and the potentially devastating consequences for children bred to fulfill the dreams and desires of their parents. The issue of commodification also looms large in stories of the extravagant emotional and financial lengths that some would-be parents are willing to go in resorting to the new reproductive technologies to address the problem of infertility. What Peters offers us with this book is a constructive theological approach to these issues that is both realistic and hopeful.