Research on Modern Fertility Ethics Issues

Author: Xiao Junhua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: The rationality of eugenic measures is evaluated based on two standards: one is whether it benefits the achievement of eugenic goals, and the other is whether it harms other fundamental social values and human interests involved in implementing eugenics. The goal is to raise and educate offspring who meet the requirements of modern societal development. From an ethical perspective, the following principles must be upheld:
- Overcoming the old notion of private ownership of children and integrating responsibility to children with responsibility to society;
- Adhering to the principle of holistic development, combining emphasis on "talent" with emphasis on being "a person";
- Maintaining a balanced approach of leniency and strictness, combining care for children with respect for them;
- Upholding the principle that educators must first educate themselves, combining teaching children with setting an example.
The development of any society cannot come at the expense of the interests of one gender. Social compensation for women's childbirth is not only related to women's survival and development but also to the survival and development of society. The ethical basis for social compensation for women's childbirth lies in fundamentally reflecting the principle of fairness between genders in social interests and fundamentally achieving de facto equality between genders. Social compensation for women's childbirth does not mean that women are no longer personally responsible for childbirth. The fundamental significance of social compensation for women's childbirth lies mainly in society's recognition and affirmation of the special labor value of the population engaged in childbirth. From the perspective of sharing responsibilities, this is merely society taking on its own share of responsibilities that were originally meant to be shared.
Under the current shortcomings of existing birth compensation, all societal parties should adopt effective corrective measures to gradually improve the social compensation for childbirth, transforming "raising children" from a personal "private matter" into a "matter of the whole society." This ensures that the entire society fairly and reasonably shares the responsibility of raising the next generation.
The conclusion elaborates on the three major stages of human reproductive behavior—natural reproduction, family planning, and selective reproduction—and their respective characteristics. It reveals the historical process of human reproduction moving from necessity to freedom and the ever-expanding moral responsibilities, proposing that human reproductive ethics will become increasingly complex as human reproductive behavior becomes richer and more diverse, and the historical mission it carries will become even more profound and lofty.