Skip to content

Carbon caps and IVF

by Dominic Wilkinson @NeonatalEthics

Over on the Journal of Medical Ethics blog are a couple of posts that might be of interest to Practical Ethics readers.

Last week, the journal published online an article by Cristina Richie on carbon caps and IVF. She argues that the environmental costs of reproduction should lead to carbon caps on IVF, and more restrictive public access to artificial reproduction.

Iain Brasssington wrote a blog in response, ‘ARTs in a warming world‘. He wrote:

“while reproduction may be a good, it is not the only good at which persons or policies may or should aim; and there are times when two goods conflict.  Neither is it too strange to suggest that there are times when a person should abandon one good because of the greater moral gravity of some other, greater, good.  It’s possible that reproduction is one of those goods.”

I also wrote a blog in response to Richie, arguing that “Gaia doesn’t care where your baby comes from“. From an environmental point of view there seems little reason to place limits on artificial but not natural reproduction, or to restrict publicly funded IVF (as Richie suggests) to the “biologically infertile”.

Finally, Iain wrote a follow-up piece about conflicts of interest and ethical analysis. Some had criticised Richie’s arguments on potentially ad hominem grounds. Brassington argues (persuasively) that what matters are the arguments, not their origins.

[Feel free to comment over on the JME blog]

Share on