Bioethics: Designer Children

What this lecture covers

This short segment, edited from a talk Sandel gave in Barcelona for Spanish television, is not a full lecture but a focused discussion of genetic selection in reproduction. Sandel uses the real case of a deaf lesbian couple who deliberately chose a deaf sperm donor so their child would share their identity, then broadens the discussion to commercial sperm banks and fertility clinics that let parents select traits like eye color or hair color.

After watching, you should be able to state the moral question raised by the deaf couple's case and explain why Sandel worries that using genetic technology for parental preference, rather than health, risks turning children into commodities.

Key ideas

• Deafness as identity vs. disability: the couple's case tests whether deafness should be treated as a medical impairment or a valid identity a parent might reasonably want to pass on.
• Health vs. preference: Sandel accepts genetic technology used for health but questions its use to satisfy parental preferences about traits like appearance.
• Commodification of children: cataloging sperm donors by physical and academic traits, as commercial sperm banks do, risks treating children as products assembled to specification.
• Market vs. democratic decision: Sandel frames the choice as being between letting an unregulated market decide the limits of genetic technology or reaching that decision through public, democratic debate.

Before you watch

• This segment works as a standalone case study and doesn't require prior lectures, though it connects to the course's broader discussion of what justice owes to differing conceptions of the good.

Check your understanding

1. Why did the deaf couple in Sandel's example seek out a deaf sperm donor, and what argument did they make for their choice?
2. What is the difference, in Sandel's view, between using genetic technology for health and using it for parental preference?
3. Why does Sandel think commercial sperm banks that catalog donors by trait represent a danger?
4. What are the two ways Sandel says the limits of genetic technology could ultimately be decided?