Ethical Ethics Of Abortion

Genetic research has taken a prominent role in the last century’s crusades to eradicate a multitude of diseases, and genetic tests are now available for over eight hundred conditions. Individuals with known family histories of hereditary diseases are urged to consult geneticists before conceiving, and minimally invasive prenatal diagnostic technologies are making early genotyping increasingly accessible. As an individual burdened by an autoimmune disease since infancy, I am one of millions invested in the possibilities of such research. The potential benefits of genetic manipulation are simply indisputable. In fact, the benefits of genetic manipulation are potentially so extensive that qualifying the consequential harm seems, at a glance, futile. Yet there is much cause for speculation. Even routine genetic testing, such as the broadening scope of prenatal diagnosis, has prompted consideration regarding its correlation to rising abortion rates. Abortions following the diagnosis of congenital disorders are at an all time high, and these statistics indicate that the elimination of a genetically defective fetus is considered morally acceptable. This has profound implications for contemporary ethical discussion.

Aristotelian argument for the intrinsically good nature of humanity no longer permeates society, as this conceptualization poses a challenge to contemporary ideological commitments. New biotechnologies are largely established on the principle that the human being is but an arbitrary amalgamation of matter. Under these nihilist principles of human existence, it is indeed ethical to manipulate human matter with minimal discretion, for matter is susceptible to physical mechanisms. Such devaluing of human life is counter-in...

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... acknowledge the moral implications of our decisions. The belief that perfection will free us from our human limitations is illusionary, superficial, and contradictory. As Michael Sandel offers, “the giftedness of life is to recognize that our talents and powers are not wholly our own doing, nor even fully ours, despite the efforts we expend to develop and to exercise them. It is also to recognize that not everything in the world is open to any use we may desire or devise. An appreciation of the giftedness of life… conduces to a certain humility” (27).

Perhaps it is those we are trying to eradicate from society who best demonstrates how power is perfected in weakness. Human happiness is not an unmarred genetic sequence, and perfection in the human form will never exist. This may represent the deepest challenge to the ideologist commitments of our tenacious minds.