Response

Rachels and the Ayalas

Although some might disagree, I will assume that parents do have the legal authority and the moral right to submit their children to operations of the kind the Ayalas requested for Marissa, provided there is "little risk" to the child. (What would constitute "little risk" is obviously a matter of contention, but I assume that this is not at issue in this case.) I also will assume, without argument, that a child has certain rights over its parents. At issue here is one such right. Do we have a right to be conceived for ourselves alone?

To get at this issue, it is important to describe the situation accurately. I take it that the parents intend to love and nurture their expected child. I believe that most (including Rachels himself, it appears) would object to a couple choosing to procreate, if they did not intend to do so. Thus, I will assume that a child has a right to the love and nurture of its parents. This requires that a couple question themselves very carefully when some other motive is also involved. Will they love and nurture the child, even if this other motive is not fulfilled (e.g., even if the child is not a suitable donor)? This is by no means an easy question to answer and it should not be taken lightly. I am assuming that it was responsibly faced and answered in the affirmative.

In the Ayalas' case, their presumed intention to love and nurture an expected child was not sufficient for them to choose to procreate: their "determining motive" was other than the expected child's life and welfare. Rachels is surely right to say that such motivation is found in many couples.

Supposing this, we are then led to ask: "Must the intention to love and nurture the expected child be not only present, but also the determining motive?" Rachels clearly thinks not. Indeed, he indicates it would be wrong to insist on this. His question "Should Anissa be left to die?" is clearly rhetorical. He is arguing it can be (and, in the Ayalas' case it is) better to procreate for some motive besides the expected child's life and welfare than not to procreate at all.

Here is how I would reconstruct Rachels'argument. He first argues that "People have always had babies for all sorts of reasons other than the ideal one . . . None of this is strange or unusual." This suggests the following syllogism:

(1) whatever act is common and uncontroversial is morally permissible;

(2) procreating for some reason other than the good of the child alone is a common and uncontroversial act;

(3) therefore procreating for some reason other than the good of the child alone is morally permissible

(4) the Ayalas'reason for procreating is one of those reasons for which it is permissible to procreate;

(5) therefore, the Ayalas decision to procreate was permissible (if not, indeed, laudable).

Premises (1), (2), and (4) are questionable. Rachels here advances no support for what I have construed as his first premise; that is, he simply asserts that we should be guided by common opinion. We might be inclined to question this: isn't this an illicit move from fact to norm, from "is" to "should"? Can't we challenge common opinion? Nevertheless, I myself would not be inclined to do so here. Although no argument is advanced for the first premise in this excerpt, I think a good case can be made for it.

Rachels gives various instances in support of his second premise: parents have children to "share in the family's work, to please grandparents, or just because it is expected of them . . . (or) because they don't want . . . an 'only child.'" I believe these can only be made to support the premise that some reasons other than the child's welfare are common and uncontroversial; from such instances alone, however, the inference would...