Oedipus Child (motherless: the new reproductive technologies' chattel child)

American.com ^ | July 25, 2007 | Elise Passamani

[Mrs. Don-o]

We may be fairly close on these disputed questions. I side with the most conservative of the medical ethicists who voice a strong moral objection against manipulating children's bodies for any reason except that which is medically beneficial to the child in question. That would include ear piercing, tattooing, foot binding, genital cutting (male or female).

Examples that are not morally wrong, because medically beneficial, would include separating conjoined twins and plastic surgery to reconstruct malformed features, limbs or organs. That would also, I think, OK surgery to conform a sexually ambiguous child's external sexual anatomy with his genotype (constructing a penis for a child who has a Y chromosome, or a vagina for a child who doesn't.)

We could wind it up here, I think. If I run into anything interesting on these points, I'll try to remember to ping you ---and you do the same for me?