Jonathan Glover
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199290925
- eISBN:
- 9780191710452
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199290925.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its ...
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Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. This book shows us how we might try to answer this question, and examines other provoking and disturbing questions. Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can? Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilities and disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinking about the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who have these conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. How do we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being? In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness to have a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but a difference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, this book examines the emotive idea of ‘eugenics’, and the ethics of attempting to enhance people, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents be free, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, for instance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distant prospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will such interventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole? Should we try to make general improvements to the genetic make-up of human beings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must not interfere?Less
Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. This book shows us how we might try to answer this question, and examines other provoking and disturbing questions. Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can? Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilities and disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinking about the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who have these conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. How do we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being? In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness to have a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but a difference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, this book examines the emotive idea of ‘eugenics’, and the ethics of attempting to enhance people, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents be free, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, for instance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distant prospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will such interventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole? Should we try to make general improvements to the genetic make-up of human beings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must not interfere?
David Beaumont
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- August 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780192845184
- eISBN:
- 9780191937453
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192845184.003.0006
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
The concept of disability (including the WHO definition). Case example: disability cf ‘challenge’. Chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and spina bifida, Author’s keynote speech to New Zealand Disability ...
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The concept of disability (including the WHO definition). Case example: disability cf ‘challenge’. Chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and spina bifida, Author’s keynote speech to New Zealand Disability Support Network. The experience of 100 people with different disabilities: system failure and ‘all some doctors see is my disability’. Author’s personal experience of disability resulting from osteoarthritis in both hips. Effect of aquajogging and gentle walking in easing pain, losing weight, and lifting mood. The experience of pain. Chronic pain syndrome and Professor Clifford Woolf’s (Harvard Medical School) 1983 definition of central sensitization. The role of the brain in the experience of pain. Central sensitization and case examples of carpal tunnel syndrome and low back pain. Regional pain syndrome, pain medication and the patient’s expertise with gabapentin. Number needed to treat of gabapentin is 6–8. Effectiveness of paracetamol. Medically unexplained symptoms explained, the example of fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome. The concept of ‘curing’ compared with ‘healing’. The concept of homeostasis. The WHO’s ICD-11 (2018) and the new overarching concept of bodily distress disorder.Less
The concept of disability (including the WHO definition). Case example: disability cf ‘challenge’. Chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and spina bifida, Author’s keynote speech to New Zealand Disability Support Network. The experience of 100 people with different disabilities: system failure and ‘all some doctors see is my disability’. Author’s personal experience of disability resulting from osteoarthritis in both hips. Effect of aquajogging and gentle walking in easing pain, losing weight, and lifting mood. The experience of pain. Chronic pain syndrome and Professor Clifford Woolf’s (Harvard Medical School) 1983 definition of central sensitization. The role of the brain in the experience of pain. Central sensitization and case examples of carpal tunnel syndrome and low back pain. Regional pain syndrome, pain medication and the patient’s expertise with gabapentin. Number needed to treat of gabapentin is 6–8. Effectiveness of paracetamol. Medically unexplained symptoms explained, the example of fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome. The concept of ‘curing’ compared with ‘healing’. The concept of homeostasis. The WHO’s ICD-11 (2018) and the new overarching concept of bodily distress disorder.
