ABSTRACT

The interests or welfare of the child are rightly central to any discussion of the ethics of reproduction1 and hence to the ethics of human reproductive cloning. The problematic nature of this legitimate concern is seldom, if ever, noticed, or if it is, it is misunderstood. A prominent example of this sort of misunderstanding occurs in the Department of Health’s important ‘Surrogacy Review’ chaired by Margaret Brazier2 (The Brazier Report) and the same misunderstanding makes nonsense of at least one provision of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act 1990 (The HFE Act) which governs assisted reproduction in the United Kingdom. I will examine formulations of appeals to child welfare in these two sources because they are more fully articulated than in some of the critiques of human reproductive cloning. However, the issues are the same, they concern the coherence and legitimacy of fears that children born as a result of controversial reproductive processes or decisions may thereby suffer in unacceptable ways.