Reasons for Having Children: Savior Siblings

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I believe that parents are not morally justified in having a child merely to provide life saving medical treatment to another child or family member, but that this does not mean that the creation of savior siblings is morally impermissible. By having a child solely to provide life saving medical treatment, you are treating this child merely as a means rather than an end to the individual child. By having the child solely as a means to save another, you are violating this savior sibling in that you are treating them as a source of spare parts that can be used by the sickly child in order to solely promote the prolonged life of the currently sick child. This view that having a child merely as a way to provide medical treatment does not consider the multitude of other avenues that this newborn child can take, and presupposes that the child will only be used for the single purpose of providing life saving medical treatment through use of stems cells or organ donation. What this view fails to consider is that these savior siblings are valued by families for so much more than just as a human bag of good cells and organs that can be used to save the life of the original child. Instead, these savior siblings can be valued as normal children themselves, in that they can be valued in the same way that any other child who is born is valued, yet at the same time they will also be able to provide life-saving treatment to their sibling. My view runs parallel to the view held by Claudia Mills who argues that it is acceptable to have a savior sibling, yet at the same time we can not have a child for purely instrumental motives, and instead should more so value the child for the intrinsic worth that they have. Mills presents her argument by puttin... ... middle of paper ... ...sic qualities, I think that savior siblings are only permissible to the point that the savior siblings life prospects are not hindered by whatever they give to the sibling that has some debilitation. In this sense, if the family will induce some negative effect on the savior sibling that will inhibit their prospects as any other normal child, then I feel that having the savior sibling for that family is not morally permissible. This would limit the creation of savior siblings to only those families that truly would value the child for more than just his or her health and aid towards the sickly child, but would also value him or her for the person that they are. Works Cited Mills, Claudia. "Are There Morally Problematic Reasons for Having Children?." Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly 25.4 (2005): 2-9. Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.

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