Reproductive Technologies: Does Choice Mean Freedom? :: essays research papers fc

Reproductive Technologies Does Choice Mean Freedom?"One does not, it might be said, increase a persons ceasedom simply by change magnitude the sheer quantity of possibilities which he or she can contain from."n Richard Norman     The issue of reproductive technologies in our society today raises an fire question. Do they increase a womens freedom of plectrum or do theyexpand the power of men and science over women. Is freedom to choose what theycan do with their bodies truly freedom. Freedom, as a core, is the absence of outside impediment. In this sort of bea can women truly be free of externalimpediment, too is this truly freedom of choice? "The clip of somaticpossibilities from which a person can choose at a accustomed moment has no directrelevance to freedomWhether a person is free or not does not depend on therange of choice." (Haylek 1960, p.12f). This subjugate is so complaisantly chargedthat a women could not mayhap have true freedom of choice provided a choice whichis basically decided for her, whether it be by the limited choices made accessible to her by medical science or by the men which are directly involvedwith them in the decision.     In order to truly agnise this issue we must look at its core,reproductive technology. This is a extensive area to discuss because it ranges fromartificial insemination to abortion to contraception to genetic engineer withmany area in between.     Artificial insemination is the introduction of sperm to an ovumartificially either inside or outside the female genital tract. Abortion is the"extermination of pregnancy before the fetus is capable of autarkic life."Birth control is a huge area of reproductive or contraceptive technology, ineffect though all sub areas of this principal(prenominal) area deal with the prevention offertilization of the ovum or egg, also in some cases such as the condom it can layover the s pread of disease. Genetic engineering is a new and extremely shudderytechnology which hopes to enable the precise engineering of an unborn child.     The previous examples are just some of the areas of reproductivetechnologies but they are sufficient to insure the basic scope of the issue.     What is freedom. In the Websters dictionary the definition is "Thestate of being free or at liberty rather than in parturiency or under physicalrestraint". This is the core of freedom but to truly understand freedom onemust define it with ofttimes more detail. two people who have concentrated theirefforts on the subject of freedom are Norman and Haylek. Norman feels thatfreedom is equated to the absence of social pressure yet the possession of