Nobody's Child, Everybody's Children:

Making And Keeping Life Human: How Shall We Use NRGTS?

Critical examination of the uses of NRGT technologies in donor conception, IVF, and surrogacy is needed. This paper will focus on relational and commercial practices and the realities these illustrate and create. What are those parents resorting to their use reportedly and apparently seeking? What are they getting, in human and relational terms? The assumption behind the assessment is: the moral is the practical—the moral being that which most befits our humanity, that which expresses, nurtures, upholds, and builds up the best in us as human beings. The paper will contend that what best befits our humanity is in fact practical because it is what stands the best chance of satisfying and enduring.

Illustrating that parenthood is one of the absolutes of human existence and a universal tribute to human optimism, this discourse will make evident the vulnerability of human life and hope. It will necessarily draw moral lines, but, not resting on absolutes, will deal with complexities and ambiguity. From the many ways of being human, what is essential to a life worthy to be called human will be explored, with reflection on love, bonding, community, sharing, integrity of person and inviolability, utter respect of persons and of the ultimate value of life: sacredness, or human “untouchability”, and acceptance of commonalities (one Earth, human finitude, and the need for limits).

The discourse will be oriented to reflection rather than research, the search for wisdom rather than new knowledge. It will also reflect on the pursuit of technological fixes—the slippery slope of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for a growing number of conditions, and fascination with the potential of germ-line genetic alteration and cloning (that is, somatic cell nuclear transfer)—a pursuit in which making and keeping life human is very much an issue.