Journal ofMedical Ethics 1999;25:108-113

Human cloning and child welfareJustine Burley and John Harris University ofManchester

AbstractIn this paper we discuss an objection to humancloning which appeals to the welfare of the child. Thisobjection varies according to the sort of harm it isexpected the clone will suffer. The three formulationsof it that we will consider are:

1. Clones will be harmed by the fearful or prejudicialattitudes people may have about or towardsthem(H 1);2. Clones will be harmed by the demands andexpectations ofparents or genotype donors (H2);3. Clones will be harmed by their own awareness oftheir origins, for example the knowledge that thegenetic donor is a stranger (H3).

We will show why these three versions of the childwelfare objection do not necessarily supply compellingreasons to ban human reproductive cloning. Theclaim that we will develop and defend in the course ofour discussion is that even if it is the case that acloned child will suffer harms of the type Hl-H3, it isnone the less permissible to conceive by cloning so

long as these cloning-induced welfare deficits are not

such as to blight the existence of the resultant child,whoever this may be.(7ournal of Medical Ethics 1999;25: 108-113)Keywords: Cloning; reproductive cloning; child welfare;the non-identity problem

IntroductionDebate over the moral permissibility of humancloning was much enlivened by the news that thefirst mammal, Dolly the sheep, had been success-

fully created from the transfer of an already differ-entiated adult cell nucleus into an enucleatedegg,' a technique popularly referred to as cloning.Now that doubts about Dolly's genetic originshave, for the most part, been dispelled,2 and thatthree other species, including the mouse,3 havebeen cloned, the prospect that a human may alsobe cloned appears ever more likely.4There is a broad, albeit loose, consensus among

members of the lay public, various legislative bod-ies, and the scientific community that humanreproductive' cloning should be banned becausethere is something deeply immoral about it inprinciple (ie, something above and beyond the fact

that it would be wholly unacceptable to attempt itin humans until it appears reasonably safe).Precisely what this is, however, continues to eludeeven the most committed of critics.6 These oppo-nents are not short of reasons for their anti-humancloning stance, indeed, such reasons, more oftenthan not couched in mysterious appeals to humanrights and human dignity, flow freely.7 But none ofthe objections to the practice of human cloninghave so far proved sound or convincing. In thispaper we address one of the few intelligible (asopposed to persuasive) objections to human clon-ing that have been advanced: the objection whichappeals to the welfare of the child. The form ofthis objection varies according to the sort of harmit is anticipated the clone will suffer. The threeformulations of it that we will consider are:

1. Clones will be harmed by the fearful or preju-dicial attitudes people may have about ortowards them. (HI);

2. Clones will be harmed by the demands andexpectations of parents or genotype donors(H2);

3. Clones will be harmed by their own awarenessof their origins, for example the knowledge thatthe genetic donor is a stranger. (H3).

Below we aim to show why these three versions ofthe child welfare objection do not supply compel-ling reasons to ban human reproductive cloning.The claim that we will develop and defend in thecourse of our discussion is that even if it is the casethat a cloned child will suffer harms of the typeH1-H3, it is none the less permissible to conceiveby cloning so long as these cloning-inducedwelfare deficits are not such as to blight the exist-ence of the resultant child, whoever this may be.Our article is divided into four main parts. We

begin by outlining what Derek Parfit has called the"non-identity problem".8 As we will demonstrate,this problem, when explored and understoodproperly, shows that those who object to humancloning on the grounds that it would havecompromising effects on a particular child'swelfare are making an error in reasoning. We thengo on to outline Derek Parfit's principled solutionto the non-identity problem and, in the ensuing

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Burley, Harris 109

three sections, we will argue against each of thethree objections to human cloning from child wel-fare identified above, in turn, by reference to thissolution. Once it is seen that Parfit's principle inunqualified form is what informs these objectionsit becomes clear that people who object to humancloning for reasons of child welfare are impaled onthe horns of a dilemma: either they must concedethat their position entails a whole host of morallyunpalatable restrictions on both artificial andnatural procreation or they must accept that theirarguments are insufficient to support the view thathuman cloning is immoral in any strong sense andso should be prohibited.

I. Child welfare and the non-identityproblemOne of the chief philosophical problems raised byhuman cloning is the question of how we shouldrespond to the interests of people not yet in exist-ence. Objections to human cloning from childwelfare are objections relating to harms futureclones might come to suffer and they may all becaptured by the claim: a child who is clonedwould, for that reason or for reasons related but notintrinsic to it, suffer a deficit in wellbeing relative tosomeone conceived through natural means.

Typical in discussions of this claim is the notionthat the harms and benefits which concern us,occur to the same child. However, as explorationof the non-identity problem will now make clear,claims of this kind cannot explain what it is thatmight be thought problematic about a decisionwhich results in a clone being harmed in any wayat all.To give shape to the non-identity problem we

will now consider the following two cases. Thefirst is Parfit's and involves a 14-year-old prospec-tive mother:

This girl chooses to have a child. Because she is soyoung, she gives her child a bad start in life.Though this will have bad effects throughout thechild's life, his or her life will, predictably, beworth living. If this girl had waited for severalyears, she would have had a different child, towhom she would have given a better start in life.9

Our analogue to this case is:

A woman chooses to have a child through cloning.Because she chooses to conceive in this way, shegives the child a bad start in life. Though this willhave bad effects throughout the child's life, his orher life will, predictably, be worth living. If thiswoman had chosen to procreate by alternative

means, she would have had a different child, towhom she would have given a better start in life.

In both cases, two courses of action are open to theprospective mother. In criticising these women'spursuit of the first option available (ie conceptionat 14 and reproductive cloning respectively) peoplemight claim that each mother's decisions willprobably be worse for her child.10 However, as Par-fit notes, while people can make this claim aboutthe decisions taken it does not explain what theybelieve is objectionable about them. It fails toexplain this because neither decision can be worsefor the particular children born; the alternative forboth of them was never to have existed at all. If the14-year-old waits to conceive, a completely differ-ent child will be born. Likewise, if the womanchooses not to clone and instead conceives bynatural procreative means the child born will be acompletely different one. Thus claims about thebadness of pursuing the first option in both of theabove cases cannot be claims about why these chil-dren have been harmed. It is better for thesechildren that they live than not live at all.

Parfit's solution to the non-identity problem isto posit claim "Q", which says that: "If in either oftwo possible outcomes the same number ofpeoplewould ever live, it would be worse if those who liveare worse off, or have a lower quality of life, thanthose who would have lived."" This claim, unlikethe claim about the welfare of a particular child,can explain the goodness and badness of the pro-creative decisions that might be taken by the twowomen in the above cases because it avoids theproblem of non-identity.With respect to the two cases we have been

examining Q implies that the 14-year-old girlshould wait and that the woman should not usecloning technology. This is not necessarily Parfit'slast word on the matter. He does qualify Q: heargues that some things may matter more thansub-optimal outcomes.'2 For example, a societymight believe that the pursuit of equality is morevaluable than promoting economic growth. Parfit,then, is a pluralist. He believes that Q is a helpfulprinciple with which to evaluate moral judgments,but he does not think that this principle shouldnecessarily be used to the exclusion of all others. Itis, however, something very like Parfit's principlein its unqualified form (henceforth Q(U)) towhich those who object to human cloning fromchild welfare are appealing, ie, the idea that theprinciple factor that should weigh in decisionmaking about who should be brought intoexistence is the question of who will enjoy thehighest level of welfare. We will now make explicitwhy we believe that this approach is gravely

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110 Human cloning and child welfare

mistaken through an examination of objections1-3 as stated above.

II. Cloning, societal prejudiceThe first objection to human cloning from childwelfare we will address says that human cloningshould be disallowed because clones will beharmed by the fearful and/or prejudicial attitudesother people have about or towards them (HI).'3The chairman of the Human Fertilisation andEmbryology Authority (HFEA), Ruth Deech,offers paradigmatic examples of this objection in arecent comment on the subject:

"Would cloned children be the butt of jibes and/orbe discriminated against? Would they become asub-caste who would have to keep to each other?Would they be exploited? Would they becomemedia objects (not an unlikely scenario given thatLouise Brown, the first test-tube baby, is still inthe media some 20 years after her conception)?"'4

Deech's objection here gives primacy to the well-being of future clones. Cloning is thoughtundesirable because of Hi type harms that theymight suffer. Her view appears to be informed byQ(U), according to which, the decision to cloneshould not be taken as any resulting child, otherthings being equal, would have a worse life than achild produced by natural means.

But, it is utterly crucial that we do not lose sightof the reason why in this case the clone's life wouldbe the worse one, namely, that other members ofsociety are prejudiced against him or her. Q(U) asapplied by Deech entails morally repugnantconclusions. Deech's deployment ofQ(U) reason-ing does not show that parents who chose to clonewould be acting immorally. The source of theharm is not the clone's parents, it is not they whodo something wrong by cloning the child, rather itis other members of society who commit a moralwrong. Think of inter-racial marriage in a societyhostile to mixed-race unions.The following example involving Tom, Dick

and Harry illustrates our point here. Suppose thata woman called Jane can conceive a child witheither Tom, Dick or Harry, and that for her (notothers) the only relevant difference between thesemen is that Tom, predictably, will be the betterfather; if either Dick or Harry were, predictably,the better father, she would choose one ofthem asher mate instead. Deech is committed to sayingthat Jane ought to choose Tom, as, if chosen, theresulting child will, other things being equal, havea higher level of wellbeing than any child parentedby Dick or Harry. Let us more fully describe thisscenario. Assume that the reasons Tom will be the

"better" father is that the society in which all fourof these individuals live is predominately popu-lated by white people, a fair number of whom areracist and that ofTom, Dick and Harry, only Tomis white. He is the "better" father because, in thisracist society his skin colour and cultural back-ground afford him better employment and otherlife-enhancing opportunities and therefore he isbetter able to provide for any child that he andJane (also white) conceive. Moreover, it is the casethat if Jane selects Tom, they will not have amixed-race child (as would occur were she to pairup with Dick or Harry instead), and therefore,because of the prevailing climate of racialprejudice any child born to Jane and Tom will leada better life than any child born to Jane and Dickor Jane and Harry.Q(U) recommends Jane's choice of Tom

because the children Jane might have with Dick orHarry would lead worse lives because of theprejudice of others. However, to reject cloning onthe grounds of this variant of the objection fromchild welfare is morally discreditable. It is true thatwe could prevent this sort of harm being done toa future child by avoiding human cloningaltogether. But we should not prevent humancloning in the face of this sort of sub-optimality,rather we should concentrate on combating theprejudices and attitudes that are the source ofharm to the clone. Those who embrace liberty andrespect autonomy will prefer this approach andreject assaults on human freedom and dignity ofthe kind Deech suggests would be perpetrated onclones. Plainly, it is inappropriate to countenanceany diminution in reproductive autonomy whenattempts to diminish prejudice and tyranny are allthe more consonant with human dignity.

III. Cloning, "life in the shadow"It has been claimed by a number of critics that aclone might be harmed because of the expecta-tions and demands of his or her parents or geno-type donor (H2) and therefore reproductive clon-ing should be proscribed. S0ren Holm, forexample, argues that one reason that we have notto clone a human is that the clone will be living "alife in the shadow" of the person from whosegenes he or she was cloned-the clone would nothave a life that was fully his or her own.'5 Holm'sargument may be stated in brief as follows: peopleare wedded to a belief in genetic essentialism (iethey misunderstand the relationship betweengenetics and personality), for that reason a clone'sparent(s) may treat him or her such that the clonewill not lead an autonomous life, he or she willalways be living in the shadow of another (ie thegenetic donor)-incessantly compared to the

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Burley, Harris 111

donor therefore human cloning should not beallowed.'6 It is unclear from what Holm has saidwhat, specifically, he believes the relationshipbetween autonomy and wellbeing to be. If, likeprominent liberal thinkers such as Ronald Dwor-kin, he thinks that autonomy is part of wellbeingthen his objection to human cloning is anobjection about the welfare of the child. If, on theother hand, he, like Kant, understands autonomyas an independent principle then the objection isnot, per se, one about the welfare of the child. Weshall respond to Holm as though he is advancingthe former sort of objection.'7Note that the claim on which Holm's argument

is premised (he calls it the "true" premise) is thatthe public harbour misunderstandings aboutgenetic essentialism, ie, they make a factual error.It is this crucial factual premise in Holm'sargument which undermines its major normativeforce. Holm concedes that were the public to bedisabused of its views about genetic essentialismthe life-in-the-shadow argument would fall flat.'7But, he insists, such a change in public under-standing about genetics is unlikely.'7 Apart fromthe fact that we do not share Holm's dim view ofwhat the lay public is likely to understand aboutgenetics, the life-in-the-shadow argument is lack-ing in a different important way. It is morallyproblematic to limit human freedom on the basisof false beliefs of this character. Were we to applythe logic of Holm's argument to other factualerrors parents might make or false beliefs theymight have which would affect the wellbeing ofpossible children it would have pernicious impli-cations. For example, parents might falsely believethat certain physical deformities implied intellec-tual impairment and this would lead them to treatchildren so deformed in a way which underminedtheir autonomy. Should such people be denied thefreedom to procreate whenever it was known thatthey might conceive such a child? Likewise,parents might believe that female children wereless intelligent than males and, in grooming themfor marriage from birth, deny them an autono-mous existence. Should such parents only beallowed to have male offspring? Holm's argumentagainst human cloning appears also to commithim to restrictive procreative policies like thesewhich undoubtedly would adversely impact, forthe most part, on people who are ill-educated/ill-informed (or genetically unlucky). Ifhuman clon-ing is banned because future people might sufferharms caused by the mistaken beliefs of parentsabout genetics then it follows that so too mightnatural procreation whenever prospective parentsdo not possess adequate factual information toensure any future child's wellbeing in other ways.

We reject this conclusion and propose that thepreferable strategy for dealing with the problemHolm highlights is one which involves educatingpeople about genetics.Holm rightly signals that the moral basis for

arguments about respect for autonomy is a claimabout the fundamental importance or value ofhaving control over the pursuit of one's ownprojects, plans and attachments. The ideal ofautonomy is used by liberal theorists to defend aparticular role for the state, namely, the creationand maintenance of the social, economic andpolitical conditions under which people may learnabout different aspects and ways of life, reflectcritically on them, and embrace a set of values andaims which they believe give life meaning. While itmay be true that the autonomy of a clone wholived her life in the shadow of another would beadversely affected this is not sufficient to curtail awould-be cloner's reproductive freedom. Holmfails adequately to appreciate that the liberal idealof autonomy to which he appeals requires,amongst other things, that compelling reasons(construed as reasons which squarely locate adeeply immoral outcome) must be given to limitindividual freedom. Holm champions impedi-ments to autonomous living as a sufficient reasonto ban cloning but he is surely mistaken.'8 In fail-ing to distinguish between his idea of a clone liv-ing a life in the shadow and the degree of the harmwhich that entails from other acts of procreationinvolving equally, if not more severe, autonomy-affecting consequences, Holm invites highly illib-eral restrictions on procreation. Freedom iscostly-affording it to individuals will, in manycases, produce suboptimal outcomes but unlessthese outcomes involve a moral wrong so seriousthat freedom must be sacrificed to prevent it, theliberal view insists that freedom prevail and thatother means be found to combat any resultingharms.Holm's objection to human cloning is more

sophisticated than the one we considered in IIabove. It implies that parents who elect to clone,who do not understand the distinction betweengenotype and phenotype, are committing a moralwrong of some kind. But how serious is this moralwrong? What Q(U) reasoning in this case shows isthat this principle is useful conditionally on theseverity of the harm inflicted. We maintain thatunless it is shown convincingly that "living in theshadow" is somehow both horrendous and moreautonomy-compromising than the plethora ofother widely accepted and permitted upbringingsa child might be "forced" to undergo, the liberalprinciple of freedom in matters relating toprocreation overrides the concern about

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112 Human cloning and child welfare

autonomy-related welfare deficits that will be suf-fered by clones.

IV. Cloning and awareness of originsThe final objection to human cloning from childwelfare we shall explore concerns instances ofpsychological harms caused by a clone's ownawareness of his or her genetic origins (H3).According to this objection, a clone who knew hisor her genetic donor was, for example, a randomlychosen stranger, or a distant, much older relative,or even someone now deceased, would be psycho-logically damaged by that information.'4 Is thisplausible? We doubt that knowledge of peculiargenetic origins would necessarily be harmful.Indeed, it might even be beneficial in certaincases. In making this claim we have in mind chil-dren who are the product of in vitro fertilisation,(which need not always involve the genetic mate-rial of both the parents) who report that they feel"special" (as opposed to alienated) for havingbeen brought into being in this way. Presumablythis has much to do with the extent to which theyfeel loved by the parents they do have, as well associetal acceptance of IVF as a procreativemethod.

However, let us assume that it would be the casethat a clone would be traumatised to some extentby his or her genetic origins. Is this sufficient rea-son to disallow cloning? IfH3 harms are both verygreat and highly probable then, yes, this is a suffi-cient reason; but we judge this scenario to be aremote possibility. Consider that there are manypossible sources of analogous H3 type traumas achild created by natural means might suffer: therealisation that your parent committed a criminalact earlier in his/her life, or is a drug addict orprostitute, or fought for an army established toadvance a dictator's master plan for domination.Our intuition is that it would be far easier to copewith the knowledge that one's nurturing parentsso desired a child that they were even prepared touse cloning technology to bring one into existencethan to cope with the knowledge of, for example,a parent's collusion with the Nazis' systematicextermination of the Jews or Stalin's politicalre-education programmes in the Siberian gulags.These examples are admittedly provocative, butthey are not isolated ones, and that is the pointthat merits stressing. If psychological distressabout one's genetic origins is sufficient to bancloning then it follows that people who fall intothe aforementioned groups and others ought alsoto be (or to have been) prevented from procreat-ing.Thus undiscriminating adherence to Q(U) rea-

soning invites the response that this objection

from child welfare, like the preceding two,logically entails other draconian restrictions onprocreative freedom which the objector wouldhardly endorse. Even if such critics were preparedto go that far, their view should not be tolerated inany society which aims to promote freedom of theindividual. Most people believe, and they do sorightly, that we should be concerned about thesorts of lives that future people will lead, but that,at the same time, this concern should not be oursole one. IfH3 harms were of exclusive import, wewould have grounds for saying that a huge numberof people in the world today are morallyblameworthy in some strong sense for havingbrought children into the world.

ConclusionWe argued above that the objections that havebeen voiced about human cloning and childwelfare are misleading. While we are sympatheticto what motivates them-society both does andshould have an interest in the wellbeing of futurepeople-we do not believe that the formulationsof the anti-cloning arguments from child welfarethat we have addressed are persuasive. Weconceded that cloned individuals might indeedsuffer welfare deficits (relative to a non-clone) butargued that even the likely occurrence of them isnot sufficient to warrant state interference withthe procreative choices of people who wish toclone their genes (or those of others, providingconsent to their use in this way has been given).Our examination of the objections 1-3 which

respectively embody reference to harms H1-H3are informed, we have suggested, by somethingvery like Parfit's solution to the non-identityproblem in unqualified form. Our discussion ofthese objections confronts those who object tohuman cloning for reasons of child welfare with adilemma: either they must endorse the morallydiscreditable outcomes entailed by the principleguiding their view or they must admit that Q(U),as they have deployed it, does not providesufficient reasons for branding reproductive clon-ing immoral either at all or in any strong sense ofthat term.Where considerations of the welfare of the child

are invoked in reproduction, including in the caseof reproductive cloning, we need constantly tobear in mind the following questions and the dis-tinctions they encapsulate: is it clear that the childwho may result from cloning will be so adverselyaffected that it will be seriously wronged by thedecision? Or rather is it the case that we have gen-eral anxieties about the likely advantages and dis-advantages of being cloned, for example, that dis-incline us to look on it with much favour? Where

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Burley, Harris 113

it is rational to judge that an individual would nothave a worthwhile life if he or she were to bebrought into being in particular circumstances,then we have not only powerful reasons not tomake such choices ourselves but also powerfulmoral reasons for preventing others from so doingif we can; by legislation or regulation if necessary.However, where we judge the circumstances of afuture person to be less than ideal but not so badas to deprive that individual of a worthwhile exist-ence, then we lack the moral justification toimpose our ideals on others. The difference we arelooking for is the difference between considera-tions which would clearly blight the life of theresulting child, and considerations that wouldmerely make existence suboptimal in some sense.We may be entitled to prevent people from actingin ways which will result in blighted lives. We aresurely on less firm, and less clearly morallyrespectable, grounds when we attempt to imposeour ideals and preferences about the specifics ofhow future lives should go.

Q(U), as we have shown, has troublesome prac-tical implications for a whole range of policiesconcerning procreation, both natural and artifi-cial. We argued that the reasons why a futureclone's, or, for that matter, a future non-clone'slife might go badly (relative to someone else),command attention. If we allow considerationslike marginalisation, discrimination, impedimentsto autonomy, etc, to outweigh all other considera-tions when deliberating over the moral permissi-bility of human cloning, we, at the same time,court numerous other unacceptably illiberaloutcomes. There are, of course, many cases whereit is true that the morally superior oftwo otherwiseidentical procreative acts will be the one thatmaximises child welfare. The crucial issue is whatfollows from this. Many people believe that thechild welfare card trumps all, that once they haveshown that some procreative choice or technologycan lead to suboptimal circumstances for theresulting children this constitutes a knock-downargument against any claimed freedom to procre-ate in that way or using that technology. Thisseems to us not only implausible but palpablymorally unacceptable.

AcknowledgementsWe are grateful to Matthew Clayton, GA Cohen,Julian Savulescu, and two anonymous refereesfrom the J7ournal ofMedical Ethics for their helpfulcomments on an earlier draft of this article.

Jrustine Burley is Simon Fellow in the Department ofGovernment and a Fellow ofthe Institute ofMedicine,Law and Bioethics, University of Manchester, andPart-time Lecturer in Politics at Exeter College,Oxford. J7ohn Harris is Sir DavidAlliance Professor ofBioethics, and a Director of the Centre for Social Eth-ics and Policy and of the Institute of Medicine, Lawand Bioethics, University ofManchester.

References and notes

1 Wilmut I, Schnieke AE, McWhir J, Kind AJ, Campbell KHS.Viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells.Nature 1987;385:810-13.

2 See Ashworth D, Bishop M, Campbell K, Colman A, Kind A,Schnieke A et al. DNA microsatellite analysis of Dolly. Nature1998;394: 329 and Signer EN, Dubrova YE, Jeffreys AJ, WildeC, Finch LMB, Wells M et al. DNA fingerprinting Dolly.Nature 1998; 394: 330.

3 Wakayama T, Perry ACF, Zuccottis M, Johnson KR,Yanagimachi R. Full-term development of mice from enucle-ated oocytes injected with cumulus cell nuclei. Nature1998;394:369-73. This development in nuclear transfertechnology is significant for the case of human cloning becausemice possess a reproductive physiology closer to that of humanbeings than animals like sheep and cows.

4 This view is echoed in the opinion section of Nature 1998; 394.5 Two main uses of cloning by nuclear transfer have been

distinguished: therapeutic and reproductive. Therapeutic cloningis understood as any instance of cell nucleus replacement aimedat creating cell lines and/or for the treatment of disease.Reproductive cloning, by contrast, is any instance of cloningwhich is not motivated by the desire to avoid disease or disability.We have chosen to concentrate on reproductive uses of nucleartransfer technology because they are more controversial.

6 For discussion of why it may be difficult to pinpoint the sourceof people's discomfort with human cloning see Kass LR. Thewisdom of repugnance. The New Republic 1997 Jun 2:17-26.

7 For a critique of these see Harris J. "Goodbye Dolly"? The eth-ics ofhuman cloning. Journal ofMedical Ethics 1997;23:353-60.

8 Parfit D. Reasons and persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984:ch 16.

9 See reference 8: 358.10 This is Parfit's point made here in the plural.Reference 8: 359.11 See reference 8: 360.12 See Parfit's discussion of Jane's choice: reference 8: 375-7.13 We do not mean by the term prejudicial attitudes here formal

discrimination, ie, rights violations.14 Deech R. Human cloning and public policy. In: Burley J, ed.

The genetic revolution and human rights. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press: ch 4 (in press).

15 Holm S. A life in shadows: one reason why we should not clonehumans. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 1998;7:160-2. Other formulations of the objection may be found in:Wilmut I. Dolly: the age of biological control. In: Burley J, ed.The genetic revolution and human rights: ch 1 (see reference 14),and Klotzco AJ.Voices from Roslin: the creators of Dollydiscuss science, ethics and social responsibility. CambridgeQuarterly ofHealthcare Ethics 1998;7: especially, 137-9.

16 See reference 15: Holm S: 160.17 Holm's own remarks suggest that this is appropriate. See refer-

ence 15: Holm S:162.18 Matthew Clayton has developed an ingenious argument in

support of the claim that the very act of choosing the genes of achild, irrespective of the consequences, is, in a non-person-affecting sense, a violation of its autonomy. See Procreativeautonomy and genetics. In: Burley J, Harris J, eds. A companionto genethics. Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming 1999.

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