Shaw Joshua
a Penn State Erie, The Behrend College , Erie , PA , USA.
New Bioeth. 2018 Apr;24(1):44-56. doi: 10.1080/20502877.2018.1441671.
This essay considers one argument used to defend parents who use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select for deafness and other disabilities. Some bioethicists have argued that a distinction should be drawn between genetically modifying embryos to possess disabilities and using PGD to select embryos that already present markers of them, and that the former is unethical because it inflicts avoidable harms onto the resulting children, whereas the latter is permissible because it allows children with potentially impaired abilities to exist. This essay raises doubts about whether a meaningful moral distinction can be drawn between modification and selection. Arguments which distinguish modification from selection can be understood in two ways. One is to read them as presenting a No Harm, No Foul argument. Another is to read them as presenting a Harming Versus Letting Be argument. Neither succeeds, however, either in establishing a meaningful moral distinction between modification and selection, or in showing that the second is morally permissible in contradistinction to the first.
本文探讨了一种用于为那些利用植入前基因诊断（PGD）来选择耳聋及其他残疾胎儿的父母进行辩护的观点。一些生物伦理学家认为，在通过基因改造使胚胎带有残疾与利用PGD选择那些已带有残疾标记的胚胎之间应有所区分，前者是不道德的，因为它给所产生的孩子带来了可避免的伤害，而后者是允许的，因为它让那些能力可能受损的孩子得以出生。本文对是否能在改造与选择之间划出有意义的道德界限提出了质疑。区分改造与选择的观点可以从两种方式来理解。一种是将它们视为提出了一种“无伤害则无过错”的观点。另一种是将它们视为提出了一种“伤害与放任”的观点。然而，这两种方式都未能成功地在改造与选择之间确立有意义的道德区分，也未能表明与前者相反，后者在道德上是允许的。
