Essay on Reproductive Techniques and Technologies: Cohen and Mcmahan

The topic regarding reproductive techniques and technologies has emerged to be one of the majorly discussed topics in the field of reproductive health. Today, it has become a major concern, particularly for women within the child-bearing age within the society. Fundamentally, the development of various assisted reproductive procedures such as the in vitro fertilization, reproductive screening, birth control and gamete donation among others have continued to receive widespread acceptance in many parts of the world (Mashiach et al. 2010). With a specific emphasis, the issue of reproductive screening has emerged as one of the most trending issues in this field, considering its recent subjection to debates by different groups of scholars and researchers. Among these scholars are Cynthia B. Cohen and Jeff McMahan who essays, "Give Me Children, or I shall Die!" New Reproductive Technologies and Harm to Children and The morality of screening for disability highlight the moral and ethical justification, the benefits as well as the drawbacks of reproductive screening. This paper will, therefore, provide a comparative analysis of Cohen and McMahan essays, and subsequently, defend the use of reproductive screening and reproductive technologies to assists people in their reproductive choices.

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Similarities between Cohen and McMahan arguments

In her essay, Cynthia Cohen provides an evaluation of the manner in which the new reproductive technologies and the implications provide the foundation for judging the morality of the procedures involved. In the essay, Cohen provides an exposition of various issues such as the in vitro fertilization as an enabling factor for women who would otherwise be unable to bear conceive and bear children through natural ways. Besides, people who practice same sex parenthood or those who have other underlying condition that would render sexual reproduction useless have also been helped. As God had instructed the bible to multiply and increase the population of the earth, Cohen suggests that these also deserve a right to parenthood (Cohen, 1996). Similarly, McMahan agrees that the use of the NRTs is not as bad as people may think or treat the procedures because of their capability of leading to the conception of disabled children. His objections provide greater implication that it is wrong for human beings to attempt avoiding having disabled children, but rather have non-disabled one (McMahan, 2005).

While it is evident that Cohen has provided considerable support on issues to so with reproductive technologies, and screening, Cohen highlights the Harm to Children Argument and therefore finds no morals because these procedures can significantly and potentially be harmful to children conceived through this methods. In this way, she stresses that if the reproductive technologies are found to cause substantial harm to the conceived children. To support her argument, Cohen mentions that the NRTs have the capacity to cause an increased risks of severe birth defects and disorders. In the essay, she states, the evidence is conflicting. A major similarity that emerges in his objections by arguing that the NRTs, despite providing assistance to couples incapable of bearing children, in addition to those who fertility problems, the procedures should not be used if in case the techniques expected to cause harmful effects such as disability to the child. In his words, McMahan contends that the emergence of the predictive medical technologies such as the genetic screening increases the peoples capacity to forecast, identify, and correct any birth defects and disorders (McMahan, 2005).

Differences

While several similarities are depicted in the arguments about the use of NRTs in assisting conception of children, in couples with fertility problems, some differences emerge. Fundamentally, it can be observed Cohen provides an argument that having a child with a disability may not be as bad as having no child at all, and therefore despite the unwanted effects of the NRTs; she sees the technologies beneficial (Cohen, 1996). Ideally, Cohen supports the idea of using reproductive techniques on the one hand and rejects it on the other hand. She further argues that it is the moral responsibility of the parents to determine the child that they would want to have (Goldberg, 2010). She opposes the notion of the NRTs by bringing out the idea that these children will, however, tend to look at themselves as commodities rather than individuals. This ends up giving these a lower quality of life than their naturally born counterparts this would be made worse if the child is born with any physical or genetically deficiency.

In contrast, McMahan demonstrate a huge difference in his arguments as depicted in his general argument and through this, McMahan through his essay, provides a contrasting suggesting that disability whether induced by practice of the mother or not, is not a bad thing and that it is wrong to assume that that people with disabilities bad than their privileged counterparts. As portrayed in his essay, McMahan argues that the adoption of methods that works towards disability prevention tends to depict that disability is a disadvantage that individual may encounter and therefore, being disabled is bad compared to being normal. Finally, Cohen provides a generalization of his arguments that increased acceptance of these techniques also reduces the solidarity, sense of collective identity, in addition to the political power that individual already have in their hands.

Defending the use of both screening and reproductive technologies to assists people

Screening and reproductive technologies and techniques have raised complicated ethical issues for the individuals and the medical professionals involved with the procedure. Notably, the treatment of infertility problems have fostered the creation of new description and perception of the parents and children, and therefore needs a conventional ideas of the foundational units of the society-the family. While it is evident that many scholars and researchers have attempted to oppose and support the idea of screening and the NRTs, I stand to support its use in assisting couples incapable of bearing children through natural ways, may be due to infertility or sexual disorders. Firstly, the reproductive technologies assists women with damaged reproductive parts or infertile to conceive babies (Vaughn, 2013 and Miall, 1986). In the same way, the men suffering from various sexual dysfunctions such as the impotence to enable the conception of their children. Secondly, the reproductive screening increases the opportunities for diagnosing, identifying the different broad spectrum of genetic and birth defects.

As McMahan contends, the emergence of the predictive medical technologies such as the genetic screening increases the peoples capacity to forecast, identify, and correct any birth defects and disorders. While it is possible that these technologies may lead to the conception of children with disability, people should not observe these technologies from the perspective of their negative effects, but their positive effects. McMahan contends that the emergence of the predictive medical technologies such as the genetic screening increases the peoples capacity to forecast, identify, and correct any birth defects and disorders. Through this, in my opinion, people will be able to diagnose, identify any genetic or congenital disabilities, and ultimately taken early interventions about these flaws.

ReferencesCohen, C. B. (1996). Give Me Children or I Shall Die! New Reproductive Technologies and Elder, K., & Dale, B. (2010). In-vitro fertilization. Cambridge University Press.

Goldberg, A. E. (2010). Lesbian and gay parents and their children: Research on the family life cycle. American Psychological Association.

Mashiach, S., Ben-Rafael, Z., Laufer, N., & Schenker, J. G. (2010). Advances in Assisted Reproductive Technologies. Boston, MA: Springer US.

McMahan, J. (2005). The morality of screening for disability. Reproductive biomedicine online, 10, 129-132.

Miall, C. E. (1986). The stigma of involuntary childlessness. Social problems, 33(4), 268-282

Vaughn, L. (2013). Chapter 8: Reproductive Technology. Bioethics: Principles, Issues, and Cases Ed. Lewis Vaughn. New York: Oxford University Press, 392-306.