argumentative essay about should parents decide who their child marries

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Field Notes

Modern Lessons From Arranged Marriages

By Ji Hyun Lee

• Jan. 18, 2013

WHETHER arranged marriages produce loving, respectful relationships is a question almost as old as the institution of marriage itself. In an era when 40 to 50 percent of all American marriages end in divorce, some marriage experts are asking whether arranged marriages produce better relationships in the long run than do typical American marriages, in which people find each other on their own and romance is the foundation.

Experts also ask whether there are lessons in how arranged marriages evolve that can be applied to nonarranged marriages in the United States. Among them is Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavior Research and Technology in Vista, Calif., and author of a new study, “How Love Emerges in Arranged Marriages.”

He found that one key to a strong arranged marriage is the amount of parental involvement at its start. The most important thing parents of the couple do, he said, is to “screen for deal breakers.”

“They’re trying to figure out whether something could go wrong that could drive people apart,” Dr. Epstein said.

Some couples who have entered into satisfying arranged marriages do attribute the success of their unions to the involvement of their parents. A. J. Khubani was 25 in 1985 when his parents tried to get him to visit Inder Sen Israni and Maya Israni in Jaipur, India, friends of the Khubani family, and meet the couple’s daughter Poonam.

“I just refused,” said Mr. Khubani, who was not keen on settling down because he had just started Telebrands, a company in Fairfield, N.J., that sells inventions via infomercials on late-night television. “I didn’t see why it was so important that I had to fly across the world to see one girl,” Mr. Khubani, now 52, remembered.

Ms. Israni, now Mrs. Khubani, was not ready, either. At the time she was a soap opera star and rising Bollywood actress.

Getting them to meet took some prodding: Mr. Khubani’s father, knowing that his son was going to Asia on business, offered to pay his way if he stopped in Jaipur. The young man and woman both relented, with the casual assumption that they would just please their parents “and that would be the end of it,” Mrs. Khubani said.

When they finally met, neither was impressed. Mrs. Khubani recalled, “It wasn’t love at first sight at all.” Love did not kick in until Mr. Khubani became sick and the young woman he had just met stayed by his bedside to care for him. “Nobody understood his accent because he was so American,” she said, and so she was his translator. For Mr. Khubani, her caring and elegant manners sealed the deal.

“Spending a couple of days in the room with her, alone, I fell in love with her,” he said.

They have been married for 27 years.

Arranged marriages can work “because they remove so much of the anxiety about ‘is this the right person?’ ” said Brian J. Willoughby, an assistant professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. “Arranged marriages start cold and heat up and boil over time as the couple grows. Nonarranged marriages are expected to start out boiling hot but many eventually find that this heat dissipates and we’re left with a relationship that’s cold.”

He also credited supportive parents.

“Whether it be financial support for weddings, schooling or housing, or emotional support for either partner, parents provide valuable resources for couples as they navigate the marital transition,” Dr. Willoughby said.

But does it really take a village to build a strong marriage?

“I don’t think love marriage and arranged marriage are as different as we make them out to be,” said Michael J. Rosenfeld, an associate professor in the department of sociology at Stanford University. “The people we end up married to or partnered up with end up being similar to us in race, religion and class background and age, which means that they might not be all that different from the person that your mother would have picked for you.”

Divorce rates have climbed in countries like South Korea , Iran , China , and even in India, where parents traditionally have had a strong hand in the marriages of their children. And while India may boast of having one of the lowest divorce rates in the world — below 3 percent by some estimates — divorce there still carries a great stigma. It is also a country in which divorce sometimes is not an option for many women and those seeking dissolution have encountered violence .

In the United States, both parents and young adults still value marriage, Dr. Willoughby said. Their differences, he wrote in an e-mail, “are in sequencing and timing. It’s more about parents and children disagreeing about how they get to marriage and when it happens.”

With “free-range” marriages predominant, this approach discourages parental intervention.

“We celebrate autonomy,” noted Dr. Epstein, which, he explained, is why adult children bristle at the idea. But given the speed at which couples meet, greet, cohabitate and separate these days, he said, he thought there was some logic in trying a method that has worked for so many couples and in so many cultures.

Orthodox Jews in the United States are known for arranging marriages, with some parents using professional matchmakers.

“In the secular world, a lot of the times a couple will fall in love with each other and then at that point they lose objectivity,” said Rabbi Steven Weil, the executive vice president at the Orthodox Union in New York. In arranged marriages, however, “there is a lot of homework, a lot of energy spent, before a young man and woman fall in love with each other. For that reason, the parents are involved. But obviously it’s the decision of the young man and woman, but a parent knows a child.”

For many Korean mothers, the prospect of marriage for their children is not a wait-for-it option. These parents also call in professional matchmakers to direct their career-minded children into becoming marriage-minded.

Diane Kim of Janis Spindel Serious Matchmaking in New York reported that some 40 percent of her clients in the agency’s Asian-American division are mothers calling on behalf of their sons. Many have a “demand” list of expectations. Among them: the woman must be beautiful, have an Ivy League education, come from a good family whose members are also educated, and have professional goals similar to their son.

“And then they say, ‘Can you find somebody that fits that mold?’ ” said Ms. Kim, whose matchmaking fees start at $5,000 and include 12 introductions. “My job is not just about setting people up; it’s about educating the parents.”

Bringing about these mother-tested, child-approved marriages is not easy. “I have instances where parents pay without the knowledge of their children,” Ms. Kim said, “and I would have to contact the children and tell them, ‘Hey, this might be a little awkward — and a big surprise — but your parents have signed you up. Don’t freak out.’ ”

It was through the efforts of Ms. Kim, while she was employed at another matchmaking service, Duo, that Neil Hwang, 34, a management consultant for a Manhattan investment firm, married his wife, Patty, last July.

“My mother was very proactive about getting me set up to meet women,” said Mr. Hwang, who also noted that both his parents were members of a social club that those in Mr. Hwang’s age group had nicknamed Korean Parents United for Unmarried Children.

Mrs. Hwang, a social studies teacher at a public high school in Bergen County, N.J., had also reached the crisis age of 31 and was under pressure from her parents. She was gently coerced into trying out a matchmaking service at the recommendation of her father, who had already paid for it. When the couple married last summer, Mrs. Hwang recalled her parents saying with some degree of triumph, “We knew it was going to happen!”

When his first marriage ended in divorce, Deepak Sarma, 43, a professor of religious studies at Case Western Reserve University, said he learned a valuable lesson in doing things in accordance with family approval. When it came time to make a second go at marriage, he approached his parents, asking, “Who’s out there for me?” But as an Indian-American divorcée who was not a doctor, lawyer or engineer, it was clear to his parents that his “low desirability” would make any marital arrangement difficult.

Once, while Professor Sarma was in India, his parents arranged for him to meet with a few prospective fathers-in-law. Although his offer implicitly included “a passageway to America,” he said they immediately discarded his candidacy as a groom.

“I wasn’t good enough,” he said.

Instead, he met a woman at a networking event in Cleveland in 2004. She was an internist at a clinic nearby and happened to see Mr. Sarma, a Hindu, on a panel speaking about Jainism, a religion practiced by her family, who had long insisted on her marrying within the faith. Hearing Mr. Sarma talk about a world that had closed her off to so many people, that woman, now his wife, Dr. Rita Sarma, felt a connection.

“I could hardly stay in tune with the lecture itself because I was thinking, ‘Who is this guy?’ ” Dr. Sarma said. “He was looking kind of dash. So I lingered around, and I kind of waited.”

The two bonded over their experiences in the culture of American Born Confused Desis, slang for Americanized Indians.

“It was serendipitous,” Mr. Sarma said. But he still had to persuade her father, and ultimately had to call on his own father to intercede on his behalf. It was only after all of the in-laws passed one another’s criteria that the green light was given.

Dr. Epstein admitted that the tradition of arranged marriages had no hope of gaining wide acceptance in this country.

“We celebrate rugged individualism that is antithetical to the arranged marriage culture,” he said. He argues instead for deeper parental involvement. “When you realize what it is that the families are doing, it makes excellent sense,” he said.

Which is not unlike the experience of the Sarmas, who found an American-style “love marriage” with a familial twist. Mr. Sarma now revels in the fact that he is living what has long been held up as an American marriage ideal.

“The great irony is, like, I came back here and I married a doctor, right?” he said.

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if it should be parents who choose the partner of their children

monokakau 2 / 4   Nov 14, 2013   #1 Arranged marriage has been a controversial issue up to now.Some people hold beliefs that parents should choose the spouse for their children while others vehemently disapprove.From my point of wiew there being strongly resonable rationales why it should not be the parents but the bride/groom having right to choose their life-mate. To begin with, an arranged married with not much knowing about other's character easily leads to incompatibilities in marital life.Because the bride/groom holds out much expectations for each other,they properly disappoint when encoutering weaknesses during daily life.There may be other cases of the life-mates without a lot of meetings before wedding, hardly have they realized how different they are.As a result in marriage life they are not able to find a mutual understanding.Futher more,from time to time the couple especially the women although do not have a bissful marriage but having to suffer for the family's respect ,pride and social prejudge. Secondly,if people have to make the decision of their soulmate on their own they will have to try their best to make the marrige work.Having no one to blame in event of breakup because they have the chances and choices so that they have to intolerate of mistakes, weaknesses, try to share compassion feelings, listen undividedly to each other.This will virtually buid up a really firm marrige and the true reponsibility of the couple. Finally, under the pressure of many factors, an arranged marriage is likely to transform into a marriage of convenience.This means the wedding is mainly built on fiancial,political or religious reasons.How difficult for a profound love to blossom in such cases.So without the passionate feeling of love, can a marriage be truly happy ? On the other hand, others may claim that an arranged marrige free some couples from suffering strong protests of family members.In addition hardly have they worry about bad manner or financial problems because their parents usually take into account carefully.However,can a convenient marriage life make compensation for the true feeling in love?Futher more, some strongly approve of this marital life because it just have 0 to 7 % of divorce compared with 55 % of love marriage.However; do these statistics express the complete happy marriage?The couple having an arranged marriage are usually reluctant to break up because of pressure from family in spite of their annoying disappointment while who have a love marriage are more open-minded about the reason to marry and the necessity of divorce when the love is gone. In conclusion, whereby these persuasive reasons, marrige should never depend predomantly on the parents' choice.To finding their right missing piece, people have to make their own decision and take invaluable advice from their experienced parents.

OP monokakau 2 / 4   Nov 15, 2013   #3 i am very glad for receiving the reply but can i ask why not life mate i have read this in some stories. finally i do not know the words to express my delight to receive yours as the first reply of mine.

asifulizlam 3 / 7   Nov 15, 2013   #4 To begin with, an arranged married an arrange marriage

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Should Marriages Be Arranged by Parents?

Favorite Quote: trust your heart if the seas catch fire (and live by love though the stars walk backward)

The problem that arises between parents and children of becoming age is whether or not his or her marriage should be arranged. This problem arises more in the Eastern civilization as compared to the Western due to traditions, customs and religion. It is obvious that many parents agree that it should be arranged while the children think otherwise. This problem occurs in almost every household eventually. If it is arranged by the parents of the child then it most likely would be a success and a failure. It would be a success because the parents are more thorough in their search of a spouse for their, hopefully, soon to be wed child. So the chances of them choosing a person of a bad background, and unfaithful personality are very slim. So in that perspective, the marriage would be successful. However, the chances of their child to lead a happy life are also slim, as they may grow to hate their spouses and refuse to have children with him or her. So in this case the marriage would be a failure. If it is a love marriage and not arranged by the parents, then it would most likely be a success and a failure. It would be a failure as our generation is much more reckless, spontaneous and much more unwise which could lead to a disaster. The child may choose an irresponsible, unfaithful, or/and inappropriate spouse. They may not care about his or her past, but that could lead to the collapse of not only their marriage, but their lives. However, the marriage could be proved successful. If it was a love marriage, then obviously, they would marry someone they love or deeply care about. So no matter how short and unsuccessful their marriage may be there would be some moments in which the child would be extremely happy, and isn’t that happiness worth all the trouble? In my opinion, I think that no matter what we do, the marriage would be a success and a fail despite many cases. I do agree that many marriages arranged and love have been proved quite successful, but do you, whether you’re the parent or child, want to take such a high risk? Would you be ready for the consequences that can come in either marriage? I think that everyone should marry the one we love, however I do not agree with having the risk of a short, abrupt and unhappy marriage. So, I think that the child and the parents should have a say in the marriage, because this event in one’s life could affect it drastically. No matter if the marriage is arranged or not, there would be many ups and downs we must face, but the parents and children should face them together.

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This article has 11 comments.

Favorite Quote: "Girls are so queer you never know what they mean. They say No when they mean Yes, and drive a man out of his wits for the fun of it." "Violence is never the answer! It is a question, and the answer is yes."

1. Don't list. Every paragraph is started with another version of: "it was a sucess and a failure" or "Marriage should be arranged or not arranged". 

2. Find an arguement that will blow your reader's mind and be backed up by statistical evidence or quotation.

3. No "I think"s, it weakens your arguement one hundredfold.

4. Read Sin Boldly! by David R. Williams, Ph. D.

That is all I, a thirteen year-old kid, has to say about inproving your writing.

Favorite Quote: My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thought never to heaven go.

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The choice of a spouse: Should parents have a say?

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Some parents fear their children will make the mistake of a lifetime by marrying the wrong person. Married life isn’t easy, especially if the chances of success are slim. So, what to do? No one wants to see their own child heading for failure.

When outright rejection only makes the hearts grow fonder

Unless your child is too young to get married, an outright rejection of a future son or daughter-in-law is not advisable. If your child is particularly compliant, he or she may go along with your wishes and later regret this decision for the rest of their life. Most often, the outright rejection by the parents only makes the heart grow fonder. The more the parents point out the shortcomings of the beloved, the more the children tend to justify them. The greatest love stories to ever have been written are about star-crossed lovers: Romeo and Juliette, Tristan and Isolde, Abelard and Heloise. So, don’t dig in your heels and oppose your child’s choice of spouse head on.

Nor should you become over-enthusiastic and pushy in the other way. The danger there is that should the couple get in trouble and separate at some future time, you may be get the blame.

Seeking the middle ground

It’s preferable to seek the middle ground: “We think that this person may get you in trouble. But it’s your choice and we respect it. You are intelligent enough to see if we are right. We will gladly recognize our mistake if we have been wrong. We won’t oppose your decision, but we believe you should consider our reservations and not be guided by blind love alone.”

A respectful invitation to reflect is perhaps not always effective, but at least it provides parents a clear conscience of having done what they can to warn their child.

Marie-Noël Florant

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Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation? Essay

Introduction, the cases for genetic manipulation, the cases against genetic manipulation.

The resilient progresses in genetics have led to the current states of genetic manipulation. Such genetic manipulations might be used to design the features of future babies. In fact, whichever the genetic anarchy, the medical practitioners as well as the parentage are capable of screening embryos heritably through instigating IVF also called In Vitro Fertilization.

The IVF practice incorporates all aspects of test-tube sperm egg fertilization. However, medical experts perform the action outside the mothers’ wombs to allow for the screening of the embryos. Certain genes attached to a number of incurable ill health and genetic imperfections may be eradicated through genetic manipulation (Mori, 1999).

Furthermore, before inserting the embryos free from syndromes into the foster mother’s womb, a pre implantation procedure that is an avant-garde practice is used alongside tissue typing to screen the genetic disorders in the embryos. The process is also used in cosmetic grounds apart from screening the hereditary and genetic mayhems (Santos & Ferraro, 2006).

Thus, through PDG also known as the pre implantation genetic diagnosis, parents can choose particular characteristics for their offspring. These features might encompass color of the hair, skin, eye, and gender of the progeny.

In addition, parents can decide the baby’s mental ill-health liberty; stop the obesity tendencies, physique, beauty, and intellect. However, many think that genetic manipulation has both benefits and limitations.

At the outset, genetic manipulation might be important to many parents as it trims down the prospects of grave infections in the newborn babies. Indeed, genetic manipulation can reduce chances of cystic fibrosis, atrophy of spinal muscles, and Down syndrome (Marks, 2002). Additionally, genetic manipulation eradicates Diamond-Black fan anemia that is an infrequent blood anarchy as well as ancestral hypercholesterolemia.

In order to stop the future generation from possessing genes with diseases, parents aspire for the designer babies. Actually, this is applicable to the generations having hereditary medicinal situations such as Alzheimer’s syndrome, hypothyroidism, arthritis, cancer, thalassemia, and Parkinson’s illness (Brown, 2001). Therefore, parents become rest assured that their children will have good physical shape in their subsequent generation.

On the other hand, genetic manipulation is important given that the implantation of the screened genes bearing virus from healthy persons in the womb is possible. The parents will thus be certain that their future offspring will be relieved from similar diseases they are facing together with their present progenies (Morales, 2009).

Similarly, certain parents are not capable of getting children for fear that they will pass away at infancy stage due to the accruing genetic disorders. As a result, this genetic makeup technology will allow such parents to bear children.

In fact, every child will be free from anguish while the parents will have little emotional stress as they invest minimally in striving to take care of their ailing young ones. Provided the parents go for genetic manipulation, they stand a chance of bearing a healthy offspring who will later assist and boost the existence of his/her sisters and brothers (Glover, 2006).

A number of parents often go to doctors to generate designer babies who in turn act as a source of donating organs to their elder siblings. Interestingly, many questions arise on how such children would feel if they realize that they were merely born to support their brothers and sisters. Instead of appreciating children for whatever they can do to the others, they should be cherished and loved for their personality (King, 1999).

Conversely, the technique of genetic engineering is too much pricey for parents to opt for in most cases. The obliteration of the hereditary disorders by the rich parents creates inequities amid the underprivileged and the wealthy individuals.

In the present day, intolerance is evident in persons who are born with disabilities since genetic manipulation breeds extraordinary beings thus degrading those who fall short of inherited enrichments (Suvalescu, 2001). Indeed, parents should avoid this practice as it augments discrimination towards the disabled.

Despite the fact that we can screen to get rid of bad genes in the embryos, it becomes unethical to take away or append fresh artificial genes to human embryos. The mutilations caused by genetic engineering in a solitary cell of a child are permanent and will be passed on from one generation to the other (Harris, 1992).

Thus, there is a possibility of weird reaction by the children as well as the grandchildren regarding the genetic characteristics and changes chosen to them as the best by their parents. Genetic manipulation is capricious and may affect the personality of children owing to the resultant physical mutilations.

Some groups fear that the reclamation of stem cells in genetic manipulation will lead to the creation of offspring possessing inhuman actions. Hence, parents tend to abort or seek surrogacy to get designer babies just for stem cells and thereafter dump them for adoption (Sandel, 2004).

The disadvantages of parents going for genetic manipulation seem to outweigh the advantages. The use of this technique to hoard life is no longer criticized. However, using designer babies’ stem cells for the idea of cosmetics is viciously immoral. The diverse beliefs that genetic manipulation can cause harm to the future human life and transform life beyond expectation is actually true.

Besides, the techniques will diminish the liberty of children to choose and lead to discrimination in regard to particular mannerisms. Genetic engineering should therefore not be used to decide on the children’s characteristics since it encourages parental pessimistic brunt in the society (Fukuyama, 2003).

Finally, the manipulations of genes lead to the worldwide gender discrimination owing to the baby’s gender fortitude or sex given that some parts of the world are male subjugated.

Brown, JS 2001, “Genetic manipulation in humans as a matter of Rawlsian justice,” Social theory and practice , vol.27 no.1, p. 83.

Fukuyama, F 2003, Our post-human future: consequences of the biotechnology revolution , Profile, London, pp. 148-177.

Glover, J 2006, “Choosing children: the ethical dilemmas of genetic intervention,” Philosophical Books, vol. 49 no.1, pp.76-81.

Harris, J 1992, Wonder woman and superman: the ethics of human biotechnology , Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

King, D 1999, “Pre implantation genetic diagnosis and the ‘new’ eugenics,” Journal of Medical Ethics , vol.25 no.2, pp.176-182.

Marks, SP 2002, “Tying Prometheus down: the international law of human genetic manipulation,” Chicago journal of international law , vol.3 no.1, p.115.

Morales, NM 2009, “Psychological aspects of human cloning and genetic manipulation: the identity and uniqueness of human beings,” Reproductive BioMedicine Online , vol.19 no.2, pp. 43 – 50.

Mori, M 1999, “The morality of assisted reproduction and genetic manipulation,” Journal of Reproduction, vol.15 no. 1, pp. 65 – S72.

Sandel, M 2004, “The case against perfection: What’s wrong with designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering,” Atlantic Monthly , 1 April, pp. 51-62.

Santos, A & Ferraro, V 2006, “The life human being and its new paradigms: the genetic manipulation and the implications in the sphere of the civil liability,” Scientia Luris , vol.10, n.2, pp. 39 – 57.

Suvalescu, J 2001, “Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best children,” Bioethics , vol.15 no.4, pp.413-426.

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IvyPanda. (2019, December 21). Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation? https://ivypanda.com/essays/should-parents-be-allowed-to-choose-the-characteristic-of-their-children-through-genetic-manipulation/

"Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation?" IvyPanda , 21 Dec. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/should-parents-be-allowed-to-choose-the-characteristic-of-their-children-through-genetic-manipulation/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation'. 21 December.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation?" December 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/should-parents-be-allowed-to-choose-the-characteristic-of-their-children-through-genetic-manipulation/.

1. IvyPanda . "Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation?" December 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/should-parents-be-allowed-to-choose-the-characteristic-of-their-children-through-genetic-manipulation/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation?" December 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/should-parents-be-allowed-to-choose-the-characteristic-of-their-children-through-genetic-manipulation/.

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Ielts writing task 2 sample 63 - marriages are arranged by the parents but in other cases, people choose their own marriage partner, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, in some countries, marriages are arranged by the parents but in other cases, people choose their own marriage partner..

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SHOULD PARENTS DECIDE WHO THEIR CHILDREN SHOULD MARRY?

Nairobi, Kenya.

With Modernity, I believe in giving children much freedom in the spouse selection process. That is, I would allow for a wide range of people that he/she can date or marry. Issues like skin color, accent, hair color, wealth, class status, career choice, education level and family connections are flexible issues. If my future daughter-in-law becomes of a different skin color, has a different accent, comes from a different country, has a lower education level, or is not particularly from a wealthy family, these are not deal breakers. Personal preferences like, “I want my daughter to marry a doctor/lawyer/businessman” or ” I want my son to get married to a woman from a wealthy family with connections” should be set aside.

For example, the South Sudanese community reflects all. Families become much concerned of who their son or daughter marries considering the size of the bride price. Pride takes all. Like “I want 200 cows and then give you my daughter” or ” My son should not marry from that side because they are our enemies”, ” your son should give us 400 cows because our daughter is beautiful, tall and brown”. Do these things really help? This is too common among the Dinka and Nuer families. They are much focused on the size of the dowries and not CHARACTERS. In reality, parents do not know what the couples face in their marital houses because they are only being blind folded by the pay size.

Certain things, however, pose red flags. Violence, short temper, poor control of mouth, manipulative personality, extreme selfishness, abuse of substances, addictions, infidelity, excessive immaturity, all pose a red flags. Our parents don’t know all these. The person who is marrying you is not your parents or anyone else so it depends a lot on what choice you make to be firm but you also have to consider other aspects as well. If the person you are trying to marry is your choice and you are happy with the choices you have made, then you can try to convince your parents of your partner and then get their choice and their blessings as well.

Your parents were with you since you were little, they helped you grow up, taught you well, spent money for you to get educated, looked after you when you were sick, stayed by your side and helped you to get up. And if you disobey them or make them get hurt, they will be devastated, it will literary break their hearts.

If you take a long, wide view, marriage and personal relationship are in fine shape. Parental coercion is weakening. Marriages are becoming egalitarian; enormities such as child marriages are not fading, especially in East Africa, particularly South Sudan, for example, the vows we are taking in churches have become meaningless, the vows in the Anglican wedding service, in which couples promise to love and cherish each other “till death do us apart” used to be ladden with doom.

Nor, if only the couples are considered, is the spread of cohabitation anything to worry about. Fewer people have jobs these days, or even careers, so it seems odd to expect them to leap into lifelong romantic commitments. Demographers used to argue that living together before marriage raised the risk of early divorce. But couples who move from cohabitation to marriage often start living together when they are quite young, and what is risky is not sharing a bedroom before marrying but living together in young adulthood, wether or not you have a wedding ring when you embark on it.

The problem that arises between parents and Children of becoming age is wether or not his/her marriage should be arranged. This problem arises in the Eastern civilization as compared to the western due to traditions, customs and religion. It is obvious that many parents agree to it, that it should be arranged while the children think otherwise. This problem occurs in almost every household eventually.

It can be devastating when you think you have found the perfect partner and your parents disapprove of them. If you are close to your parents, you want their approval of your marriage. But you also want to remain loyal to the person you are committing to spending the rest of your life with, the upshot: you are torn with a capital T. Be patient, there shall be a right time for your decisions, but the most upsetting decisions of all is when your parents decides without your consent!

I agree parents should get involved in marriage and courtship decisions, but it shouldn’t be strictly decided over pace. Our generation needs change, as we have been engulfed by society’s occurrences; Character assassination, mistrust, low understandings and more. At the process of dating, we believe we begin to know ourselves, judge our Characters and know what our inner thoughts and intentions are.

Girls are not properties to be sold neither are boys resources to be consumed. We should be decisive sometimes when it’s our own life challenge. Your marriages have past. Just give us counselling and guidance and not decide who to or not to marry.

You can Reach the writer at; [email protected] [email protected]

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Five Reasons Parents Should Prioritize Their Marriage

Yes, sometimes even over the children..

Posted September 15, 2023 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

• Making Marriage Work
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• Your relationship existed before your kids and will continue long after they leave the house.
• If you don't prioritize your marriage when the kids are young, it will be hard to revive it when they leave.
• Prioritizing your marriage liberates your children to be less focused on you and more on their own life.
• Focusing on your marriage is a long term investment in your own happiness as well.

Co-authored by Galit Romanelli, M.A.

Dinner time in the Romanelli house.

Zack (age 11) says to Galit: “You love Lila more than me.”

Lila (age 8) answers: “That’s not true. You love Zack more.”

Galit smiles and says: “You’re both wrong. I love daddy the most.”

We all laugh.

This story embodies our unpopular opinion:

Prioritize your marriage (read: long-term, committed relationship). Sometimes, even over your children.

Want to know why?

Here are the top five reasons:

It will strengthen your relationship.

Each relationship is actually composed of three different relationships : lovers (eroticism and sex ), friends ( intimacy and laughter ), and partners (running a household and raising kids). From the moment children are born, partnership takes over most of the relational resources. Conversations become more logistical in nature (Who’s picking up from where? Who has a doctor’s appointment? Don’t forget to buy ketchup), and the erotic and friendship aspects are set aside.

Every day we meet couples in the clinic who are in deep crisis because they overfocused on their parenting (partnership) and lost their friendship and erotic life.

When you dedicate time and energy to maintaining and investing in your friendship and erotic life, you are investing in the long-term foundation of your relationship. Doing so ensures that you will stay good friends and lovers as you evolve as partners in the child-rearing business.

It creates a healthy environment for your children.

Children grow up in the relational space between their parents. They inhale the multifaceted, intimate, playful, and explorative energy between their parents as lovers and friends. When that relational space is loving, positive, and sensitive, your kids will internalize these qualities and values, as well as have a blueprint for what a healthy relationship looks and feels like.

When parents function mostly as partners, the relational space is generally more focused on efficiency and productivity (as well as function and survival, rather than emotional growth). This limited relational space will eventually limit your children’s relational environment, directly impacting the quality of their relationships.

It models healthy intimacy for your children.

The biggest gift you can give your children is happy parents in a healthy relationship. When you prioritize your relationship, you are modeling to your children how important (and rewarding!) it is to be in an intimate relationship. This helps shape their core belief that intimacy is positive, possible, and desired.

You are also modeling that relationships are hard work. This modeling will help your children not only recognize what a healthy relationship feels like but also know how to achieve it. With this visceral knowledge, together with a healthy model of an intimate relationship, they will be more likely as adults to choose a partner who knows how to prioritize, appreciate, and respect them.

It liberates your children to grow.

When a child senses that they are their parent’s primary focus (their joy, pride, namesake), they implicitly feel committed to please their parent. This can manifest as overinvolvement with their parents instead of their friends and/or partners ( “I can’t go out with you tonight. My mom is alone and she’s so sad” ).

Other times, parental-pleasing children develop a sense of responsibility over their parents' joy. They sense that they need to live their parents' wants or needs, rather than their own. Pleasing others results in self-alienation and disconnection from their own feelings and wants.

When parents prioritize their relationship, children know that their parents' emotional needs are being met by their mate, and there’s no expectation for them to be in charge of their parents' happiness . This liberates the child to look outside the family and explore the world, rather than constantly turn back and makie sure their parents are happy and fulfilled.

It’s a long-term investment in your happiness.

Being a parent is not easy. It’s a demanding, hierarchical, asymmetrical relationship in which you won’t always receive the same amount of appreciation and support as you invest.

But the relationship with your partner is meant to be symmetrical and reciprocal, with both sides investing and expressing appreciation. Investing in your relationship means investing in yourself, investing in a relationship where you will get love, encouragement, touch, sex, laughter, and companionship when the nest will empty. The more you invest in your relationship, the more the relationship will empower and reward you later.

Remember that your relationship existed before your kids, and will continue long after they leave the house.

So these are the five reasons why we prioritize our marriage even over our parenting.

What resonated with you? What didn’t? Why?

Here’s a little exercise: Tonight, after dinner, have an open, playful conversation about this topic and see what your kids say.

Galit Romanelli is a certified personal coach, Ph.D.-candidate in gender studies, and the co-director of The Potential State , helping couples remarry each other.

Miller, A. (1979). The drama of the gifted child. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Assael Romanelli, Ph.D., is a clinical social worker and a licensed couple and family therapist based in Israel. He offers online individual, couple, and family therapy. Assael trains and lectures internationally about therapy, relationships and improvisation.

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• Ethics in Medicine
• Bioethics Topics

Parental Decision Making

NOTE: The UW Dept. of Bioethics & Humanities is in the process of updating all Ethics in Medicine articles for attentiveness to the issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion.  Please check back soon for updates!

Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH, Adjunct Professor, UW Dept. of Bioethics & Humanities

Topics addressed:

Who has the authority to make decisions for children?

What is the basis for granting medical decision-making authority to parents?

When can parental authority to make medical decisions for their children be challenged?

What are some examples of a decision that places a child a significant risk of serious harm?

What if parents are unavailable and a child needs medical treatment?

Should children be involved in medical decisions even though their parents have final authority to make those decisions?

What happens when an older child disagrees with her parents about a medical treatment?

Under what circumstances can minors make medical decisions for themselves?

Is there a resource that summarizes the various state laws regarding adolescent consent?

Adult patients have the moral and legal right to make decisions about their own medical care. Because young children are not able to make complex decisions for themselves, the authority to make medical decisions on behalf of a child usually falls to the child's parents.

Parents have the responsibility and authority to make medical decisions on behalf of their children. This includes the right to refuse or discontinue treatments, even those that may be life-sustaining. However, parental decision-making should be guided by the best interests of the child. Decisions that are clearly not in a child's best interest can and should be challenged.

In most cases, a child's parents are the persons who care the most about their child and know the most about him or her. As a result, parents are better situated than most others to understand the unique needs of their child and to make decisions that are in the child’s interests. Furthermore, since many medical decisions will also affect the child's family, parents can factor family issues and values into medical decisions about their children.

Medical caretakers have an ethical and legal duty to advocate for the best interests of the child when parental decisions are potentially dangerous to the child's health, imprudent, neglectful, or abusive. As a general rule, medical caretakers and others should challenge parental decisions when those decisions place the child at significant risk of serious harm. When satisfactory resolution cannot be attained through respectful discussion and ethics consultation, seeking involvement of a State child protection agency or a court order might be necessary.

Childhood vaccination provides an example of the kinds of factors that must be weighed in making this determination. While most physicians believe it is in a child’s best interest to receive the routine childhood vaccinations and therefore recommend them to parents, they do not generally legally challenge parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. This is because in a well-vaccinated community the risk of contracting the vaccine-preventable illness and suffering harmful consequences from the infection are quite small. However, this calculation might shift if a clinician is faced with an unvaccinated child who has suffered a puncture would from a dirty nail. In the latter case, the risk of tetanus (a serious and almost always fatal disease if not prevented) has become significant, and the provider would be justified in seeking the power of the State (through a court order or involvement of child protective services) to assure that the child receives the vaccination and treatment necessary to prevent tetanus in a high risk situation.

When parents are not available to make decisions about a child's treatment, medical caretakers may provide treatment necessary to prevent harm to the child's health. In general, a child can be treated or transported without parental permission if the child has an emergency condition that places his or her life or health in danger, the legal guardian is unavailable or unable to provide permission for treatment or transport, and treatment or transport cannot be delayed without further endangering the child. Providers should administer only those treatments necessary to prevent harm to the child until parental permission can be obtained. Examining a child who presents to medical attention is always appropriate in order to establish whether a threat of life or health exists.

Children with the developmental ability to understand what is happening to them should be allowed to participate in discussions about their care. As children develop the capacity to make decisions for themselves, they should be given a voice in medical decisions. Most children and adolescents lack full capacity to make complex medical decisions, however, and final authority to make medical decisions will usually remain with their parents.

The wishes of competent older children regarding their medical care should be taken seriously. If the medical caretaker judges a child competent to make the medical decision in question, she should first attempt to resolve the issue through further discussion. If that fails, the medical caretaker should assure that the child's voice has been heard and advocate for the child. In intractable cases, an ethics consultation or judicial hearing should be pursued.

There are three situations in which minors (those who have not reached the age of majority in their state of residence) have the legal authority to make decisions about their health care.  First, every state has emancipated minor laws which designate minors who meet certain criteria as having the authority to make decisions (including medical decisions) for themselves. Although emancipated minor laws vary from state to state, most states recognize an emancipated minor as a person who meets one of the following criteria:

• Economically self-supporting and not living at home
• On active duty in the armed services

Second, most states recognize some minors as sufficiently mature to make medical decisions on their own behalf. A determination that a minor is mature usually requires that the minor be older than 14 years of age and have demonstrated a level of understanding and decision-making ability that approximates that of an adult. While some states allow physicians to make this determination, most require a judicial determination of mature minor status.

Third, all states make condition-specific exceptions to the requirement of parental consent. These laws may allow an adolescent to seek treatment without parental consent for sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, contraception, psychiatric disorders, and drug or alcohol abuse.

The Guttmacher Institute publishes a summary of the adolescent consent laws that can be found at: www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_OMCL.pdf

Additional Readings: Parental Decision Making

• Committee on Bioethics, American Academy of Pediatrics. Informed consent, parental permission, and assent in pediatric practice.  Pediatrics  1995; 95: 314-317.
• Diekema DS. Parental Refusals of Medical Treatment: The Harm Principle as Threshold for State Intervention.  Theoretical Medicine & Bioethics  2004; 25: 243-264.
• Diekema DS and the Committee on Bioethics, American Academy of Pediatrics. Responding to Parental Refusals of Immunization.  Pediatrics  2005; 115: 1428-1431.
• English A, Shaw FE, McCauley MM, Fishbein D. Legal Basis of Consent for Health Care and Vaccination for Adolescents.  Pediatrics . 2008; 121: S85-S87.
• Hanisco CM. Acknowledging the Hypocrisy: Granting Minors the Right to Choose Their Medical Treatment.  New York Law School Journal of Human Rights  2000; 16: 899-932.
• Miller VA, Drotar D. Discrepancies between mother and adolescent perceptions of diabetes-related decision-making autonomy and their relationship to diabetes-related conflict and adherence to treatment.  Journal of Pediatric Psychology  2003; 28(4): 265-74.
• Ross LF.  Children, Families and Health Care Decision-making . New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Sher EJ. Choosing for Children: Adjudicating Medical Care Disputes between Parents and the State.  New York University Law Review  1983; 58: 157-206.

Related Bioethics Websites by Topic: Parental Decision Making

• Guttmacher Institute Summary of Minor Consent Laws

CASE STUDIES

Parental decision making: case 1.

A 4-year-old with an obviously broken forearm is brought to the emergency department by her baby-sitter. Both the baby-sitter and emergency room staff have attempted to reach her parents without success.

Can you treat this child without parental permission?  

Your first duty is to the health and welfare of the child. Having attempted unsuccessfully to reach her parents for consent, you should proceed with x-rays and treatment of her fractured forearm. Rapid treatment of the child's pain and fracture are clearly in her best interest. When optimal treatment requires immediate intervention, treatment should not be delayed even if consent has not been obtained.

Parental Decision Making: Case 2

An ill-appearing 2-year-old with a fever and stiff neck appears to have meningitis. His parents refuse a lumbar puncture on the grounds that they have heard spinal taps are extremely dangerous and painful.

What are your obligations in this case? How should you proceed?

A lumbar puncture is the only way to diagnose meningitis and a delay in treatment could cause significant harm to the child. Complications from the procedure are very rare, and the benefit in this case is likely to be substantial. There is not time to obtain an ethics consult or court order. The physician should attempt to address the parents' misconceptions about lumbar punctures and to reassure them about the safety of the procedure and perhaps offer to use appropriate pain control methods. A second opinion from another physician may prove helpful.

Should these efforts not result in parental permission, the physician is justified in contacting the state’s child protection agency to obtain the authorization necessary to proceed with the procedure and treatment of the child. While parental authority to make medical decisions for their children is broad, it does not include choices that may seriously harm their children. As long as the physician has used reasonable clinical judgment in determining the need for the lumbar puncture, legal liability should be minimal.

Parental Decision Making: Case 3

A 5-year-old child has just had his second generalized tonic-clonic seizure in a 4-month period. You have recommended starting an anticonvulsant. The child’s parents have concerns about the recommended medication and would prefer to wait and see if their son has more seizures.

How should you respond to the parents’ request?

The parents have the authority to make a choice of this nature. In general, courts have been reluctant to overrule parental wishes in most situations where that decision does not place the child at considerable risk. Though failure to start an anticonvulsant may increase the risk of further seizures, this does not pose a substantial enough risk to the child to justify overriding the parents' wishes, especially given the potential risks and side effects associated with the medication. Though you may not agree with their decision, the decision is a reasonable one that does not place their child at substantial risk of increased harm.

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Should Parents be Involved in a Child’s Career Choice?

Parents often wonder if they should be involved in their child’s career choice. There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument. On one hand, parents can offer valuable insight and guidance based on their experience in the workforce. On the other hand, too much involvement could limit a child’s ability to make their own decisions.

Parents exert a strong influence on how their children choose careers. They may influence them directly and indirectly, intentionally and inadvertently, consciously and unconsciously. Since parents generally live with the child during the formative years, they tend to have a strong influence on how their children make career decisions.

While most parents report having little to no influence on their children’s careers, research indicates that children have a different perception, stating that their parents played a significant role in their career choices.

Research shows that parental norms and values most often affect children’s career aspirations via parental interactions (Lavine, 1982), involvement in schoolwork (Simpson, 2003), and gender expectations (Jacobs, Chhin & Bleeker, 2006; Hesse-Biber & Carter, 2000). While parents may assume other variables, such as occupation or education, to be most influential, their influence is most often exerted through normative channels, including their interest in schoolwork and aspirations for educational achievement (Simpson, 2003).

What are the Pros of Children Choosing a Career Based on Their Parents’ Expectations?

According to Michael Rutter (2000), “Young people tend both to share their parents’ values on major issues of life and also to turn to them for guidance on most major concerns.” Therefore, parents’ financial and socio-emotional support for a particular career path may boost the child’s self-esteem and career self-efficacy.

In addition to financial and socio-emotional support, parents provide valuable learning experiences through their own role models and supporting activities in exploring career interests.

What are the Cons of parent’s Involvement in the Child’s Career Choice?

The danger is that children may aspire to a career that follows their parents’ norms and values without developing their own sense of self. Jacobsen (1999) pointed out the following wager: “If your family’s values mesh with your own, you can find strength and guidance in them throughout your career. However, if these values don’t mesh, you’ll build a career that your parents take pride in, but that leaves you frustrated and empty” (Jacobsen, 1999, p. 101). For that reason, parents need to understand the many ways they can influence their children’s career choices.

What is a healthy level of involvement for parents?

Planned and proactive parents’ involvement is the best approach. Before discussing career choices with their child, parents should reflect on their own expectations, unfulfilled childhood desires, and what had influenced their career choices.

Parents should strive for their child to do their best, regardless of their career choices. Research shows that children who are expected to do their best become more focused on career-relevant goals and report high motivational levels. This positively affects their ability to reach certain career goals, leading to a sense of accomplishment.

What are healthy ways for parents to help kids navigate career choices?

Parents can help their children navigate career choices by fostering a healthy balance of challenge and support within the relationship.

Challenge refers to the stimulation, discipline, or training that parents and other family members direct toward the child. It also includes the family’s expectations and how much that child wishes to fulfil those expectations. Family support refers to how parents respond to a child, including their levels of comfort and love within the home.

Parents help create a challenging and supportive environment when they allow their children to explore their own interests.

• Allow your child to explore all careers of interest. Let them shadow you at work for a day as well as other people (if possible).
• Attend career choices exhibitions.
• Encourage your child to talk to people from different careers and ask questions about their work and responsibilities.
• Discuss the career your child is interested in from a neutral perspective. Point out the pros and cons, but don’t try to influence a decision.

Acting this way, parents can serve as inspiring role models and empower their children to make their own career choices.

You can use the Superpower Kids My Career Exploration printable.

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Parental Selective Reproduction: Genome-Editing and Maternal Behavior as a Potential Concern

At the end of November 2018, Chinese geneticist He Jiankui declared he implanted embryos, that had been genetically modified with the CRISPR-Cas9 technique (Ran et al., 2013 ; Doudna and Charpentier, 2014 ), into two women. This announcement has aroused many comments and controversy both in public opinion and in the scientific community (e.g., Colata et al., 2018 ; Cyranoski and Ledford, 2018 ; Chadwick, 2019 ). As far as we know, this is the first time that a modification of the germline has been artificially and deliberately induced in two human beings, excluding mitochondrial replacement therapy (which is, however, aimed at preventing a specific type of genetic pathologies and does not allow for broad-spectrum interventions such as CRISPR-Cas9). In this case, He disabled a gene—CCR5—which is believed to play a role in allowing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to infect the cells.

The procedure has been the object of much criticism from the strictly medical-scientific point of view: among other things, it has been defined as “misguided, premature, unnecessary and largely useless” (Cyranoski, 2018 ). On the one hand, guaranteeing only partial genetic protection against HIV, which could also be obtained with other medical methods, the procedure, which has not yet been sufficiently tested, does not seem to compensate for the high risks it entails. On the other hand, the absence of the CCR5 gene can make lungs, liver, and brain more vulnerable to infections and chronic diseases other than HIV, starting with the flu (Falcón et al., 2005 ; Kohlmeier et al., 2008 ). In January 2019, He was suspended from his university—Southern University of Science and Technology of China, in Shenzhen—and placed under house arrest by the Chinese authorities. Meanwhile, the debate on the future of gene editing has become inflamed with different positions that, from the initial total rejection and request for sanctions, have expanded to include the simple wish of self-regulation on part of the scientific community (Akabayashi et al., 2018 ; Nie and Pickering, 2018 ; Hurlbut, 2019 ).

In particular, the World Health Organization has formed a panel of 18 scientific experts with the aim of setting international standards for the oversight of this practice, who proposed a global registry of studies related to human gene editing. And a group of 18 renowned scientists and bioethicists involved in CRISPR-Cas9 research has signed a 5-year global moratorium request “on all clinical uses of human germline editing” (Lander et al., 2019 ). Scholars believe that it is currently too risky to make genetically modified children (we are not yet able to hit the target accurately and we do not know what collateral consequences a local modification could produce). After the 5-year period, in which research is expected to make significant progress, there would be 2 years for each state to create public consensus on how to proceed. A legal ban is not requested, since it is thought to be sufficient to flag those who violate the moratorium, once the latter is adapted. Indeed, the Oviedo Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, ratified by 29 countries, states that (article 13), “An intervention seeking to modify the human genome may only be undertaken for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic purposes and only if its aim is not to introduce any modification in the genome of any descendants.”

But even in the face of the highlighted dangers, the moratorium does not seem to be shared by all scientists working in the field (Cohen, 2019 ; Dzau et al., 2019 ). Some are skeptical about the usefulness of such a measure, which could have repercussions on research and funding. Leading geneticist George Church said it is only a matter of time before the genes of human embryos are “edited” to enhance their health and intelligence. And, to him, it is something we should embrace rather than fear (Cocker, 2019 ). Furthermore, it cannot be forgotten that the invitation to an appropriate use of the technology launched by the first International Summit on Human Gene Editing in December 2015 has been disobeyed. Not only did He edit embryos, but he also had the collaboration of other scientists who knew about the experiment and did not report it. Meanwhile, other pronouncements have been more “open-minded,” and interest in the possibility of human genetic enhancement has increased (cf. Lander et al., 2019 ).

The Ethical Debate

From an ethical point of view, and in particular from the standpoint of the ethics of human reproductive genetic engineering (Liao, 2008 ), crossing this new threshold—i.e., the birth of the first genetically modified children—can lead to envisage both dystopian scenarios and more realistic, but not necessarily more positive, ones, above all due to the fact that any human germline editing has the potential to spread to the whole species with unpredictable consequences (the premise being that hypothesizing future situations is useful to evaluate possible choices to make, but that such predictions may be disproven).

Certainly, the possibility of easily modifying human DNA may cause the temptation to engineer major eugenic programs. The so-called rogue states could contemplate the—literal—creation of a new class of physically and cognitively enhanced individuals. Indeed, one might act on the gene that limits muscle development—as it has worked with sheep (Crispo et al., 2015 ). A bio-hacker has tried to do it but has apparently failed (Mosher et al., 2007 ; Lee, 2017 ). On the other hand, some genes may soon be identified that influence the development of intelligence (Plomin, 1999 ; Lavazza, 2018 ) as well as some psychological functions such as memory (Awasthi et al., 2019 ). Also, such rogue states might even want to create a society like that described by Huxley ( 1932/1998 ), where individuals are genetically engineered to be placed into predetermined classes based on intelligence and working abilities, some of them deprived of the dignity of human beings.

The only way to prevent these scenarios from occurring would probably be through preventive war or armed humanitarian interference (possibly under the guide of the UN), in order to protect (for the first time in human history) the population from very serious, large-scale scientific abuses—something that has already happened with the eugenic mass experiments conducted by the Nazi regime but without an international intervention (even though laws that imposed the sterilization of criminals and people deemed unfit to procreate were also introduced in many American states between the First and Second World War; cf. Kevles, 1985 . And Germany itself was inspired by the laws of Oklahoma, cf. Bruinius, 2006 ). But if there was a serious threat of events of this type linked to a totalitarian eugenics, we could also evaluate the idea of placing a planetary ban on all gene-editing techniques, stopping research and making unavailable the necessary materials and tools, as is usually done in science (He Jiankui himself benefited from international collaboration).

This hypothesis obviously only makes sense from an ethical standpoint, because such a ban would be almost impossible to implement from a practical point of view. And there would also be good reasons to oppose a global research ban, because a technique like CRISPR-Cas9 has opened extraordinary treatment opportunities and to renounce it, preventing many people from avoiding a fatal disease due to potential risks on other fronts, would seem unreasonable and immoral. An important technical distinction in fact is that between genetic correction and genetic enhancement, where genetic correction means the correction of rare mutations with high probability of causing a severe single-gene disease, while genetic enhancement means the generic attempt to improve individuals and the whole species.

Scientific knowledge and technological tools are often ambivalent and can be used against shared goals and values. This requires that there be a rational ethical reflection and an informed public debate with a consequent action aimed at avoiding undesirable outcomes through the procedures of liberal democracy. Here probably comes the most difficult point, because the main risks related to the diffusion of genome-editing techniques do not seem to come from totalitarian eugenics (which seems improbable), but rather from liberal eugenics, as it has been defined (cf. Habermas, 2003 ). Liberal eugenics implies that the decisions about reproductive selection should be a) voluntary, i.e., taken without coercion; b) individualistic, i.e., conducted by individual families and for individual children, not imposed by the state or for specific racial groups or gene pools; and c) state-neutral, i.e., pursued by parents without the state promoting any particular goal about the people who should be born.

Indeed, if genome editing were to become widely available, it would probably not be the state to impose on citizens how to modify their offspring for a collective purpose set by the state itself: families themselves would freely decide if and how to modify the DNA of their children. Consider what He said in November 2018 at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong: “Do you see your friends or relatives who may have a disease? They need help. For millions of families with inherited disease or infectious disease, if we have this technology, we can help them” (Cyranoski, 2018 ). What parent would not do anything for her child to be in good health and successful?

Now, it is not a question of relying on rhetorical or generic statements to develop an ad hoc argument: the point is to take a relatively realistic scenario as the object of specific philosophical reflection. The principle in question, about procreative decision making, was formulated by Savulescu: the so-called principle of Procreative Beneficence. According to it, “couples (or single reproducers) should select the child, of the possible children they could have, who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as the others, based on the relevant, available information” (Savulescu, 2001 , p. 415). In the perfectionist view, since the distinction between embryo selection and modification is normatively relevant (Liao, 2019 ), that principle should be completed with the “moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life” (cf. Harris, 2007 ; Savulescu and Kahane, 2009 ).

While it is difficult to challenge the use of genome editing for the prevention or treatment of diseases that endanger the life of the unborn child, on the other hand, it is well-known that the line between cure and enhancement—along the continuum that goes from the treatment of serious pathologies to interventions of physical or cognitive cosmesis—is very blurred and any attempt to trace it clearly does not find easy consensus.

Compared to protection from an almost certain transmission of HIV, how should one evaluate the attempt to, say, genome-edit the DNA inside the father's sperm cells with the aim of reducing the child's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD), knowing that it is uncertain what the genetic component of AD is (Regalado, 2018 )? Therefore, it makes sense to imagine that reproducers, faced with the possibility of modifying the genetic makeup of their children, will try to obtain the best for them, in terms of both physical health and human flowering understood in the broader sense of the expression.

An influential, and here relevant, ethical–philosophical normative line of argument is the “procreative liberty” theory, supported by Robertson ( 1983 , 1994 ). The basic idea is that unless the state has very good reasons not to allow it, people should be free to have access to all the technologies provided by reproductive medicine to have a child with specific traits. Given that the freedom to have sex without reproduction is recognized by the right to access birth control and abortion (at least in the United States), Robertson advocates a constitutional right “to become pregnant and to parent” in such a way as to have “the freedom to reproduce when, with whom, and by what means one chooses” (Robertson, 1983 ). Procreative liberty implies the right of future parents to not suffer any interference from the state and this freedom also concerns the external conception and all the technological means involved in procreation.

The point is that if people are free to choose whether they reproduce or not, and if the genetic characteristics of the expected offspring influence that decision, then parents should be free to make a prenatal selection of the characteristics of their children. And to guarantee this right, which, according to Robertson, should be constitutional, no prohibition should be placed on the parents' desire to have a child with certain characteristics, and if a trait turns out to be decisive for the parents' choice to reproduce or not, then the decision to engineer this trait should receive legal protection as an exercise of procreative liberty. Robertson speaks of public restraints, but other jurists have tried to extend the same arguments about procreative freedom to the private sector and to medical professionals (Fox, 2018 ).

New Objections To Procreative Liberty

Now, many objections can be raised against the principles of Procreative Beneficence and Procreative Liberty. One type of objection concerns the protection of the unborn child, whose moral status is certainly a matter of discussion, but which should not be completely overlooked in the balance of rights (Marquis, 1989 ). Another type of objection states that “parents may misjudge the best features for their children's lives and that therefore it is preferable to act with caution, especially when it comes to genetic editing. Other objections refer to the children's right not to be burdened with their parents' expectations, as there is an asymmetric power relation in place by which parents may decide for their children that they should be particularly competitive in some areas over others” (Lavazza, 2018 ).

This will be unlikely to discourage reproducers, if given the chance to do so, from trying in every way to give their children what they think will be the best tools for a satisfying and happy life, including modifications of DNA to prevent diseases, slow down aging, enhance physical endurance, or cognitive abilities. Is it not typical of parents, and of mothers especially, to endure every sacrifice and to try in every way to secure the best for their children? I believe that it is precisely this well-meaning type of eugenics that is to be feared most, as it carries with it many risks that should be immediately taken into serious consideration. In fact, this would be a liberal eugenics that would hardly be opposed, at least in its early stages, precisely because it seems oriented to the welfare of a future individual while not harming anyone else.

However, there are some strong reasons for concern. Firstly, as was emphasized in He's case, security reasons require great caution in intervening on the genome. We do not know what the long-term consequences may be or what interactions may happen between induced mutations and random mutations in future generations (as the editing would affect the germline), and we cannot experiment on human beings to acquire the knowledge that we lack today. Secondly, even if the problem of safety were solved, children have the right to autonomy, and they might not share the idea of a modified custom genome that their parents would choose for them. In this sense, the principle of Procreative Beneficence and the procreative liberty should be mitigated by the principle of the unborn's right to an “open future” not conditioned by their parents' eugenic choices. This principle would have consequences on the permissibility of genome editing. On the basis of this (provided this is technically possible), one may allow interventions aimed at giving a general broad-spectrum advantage, such as intelligence, but not modifications that would affect the child's existential path, such as above-average muscle development or a specifically enhanced sense like hearing (the topic is very complex, though, and cannot be exhausted in a contraposition between principles, cf. Glover, 2006 ; Gheaus, 2017 ).

Thirdly, there is a social reason in the broad sense. We do not know what wide composition effects may arise if every parent could have a genetically modified child. A well-known example is the choice of gender: if every family only wanted male children, based on the view that life for males is usually easier in society, this would result—contrary to individual expectations—in a worse condition for all, with a lack of women and a very strong competition between men. Also, gene editing might produce too many people with inclinations or skills of a certain type, impoverishing society of other talents that could suddenly become necessary. Not to mention the potential reduction of genetic variety (since modifications could converge on a few preferred traits), variety being one of the tools with which evolution makes the species prosper, as the more polymorphisms are found in the population, the more easily there may be some individual capable of withstanding new environmental challenges, be it a bacterial or viral threat, harsh climatic conditions, and so forth.

Moreover, inequality could also get worse insofar as only some reproducers would likely have access to the most advanced forms of genetic editing, which would make their children much more advantaged and likely to occupy the pre-eminent positions in the economic, political, and cultural hierarchy. A scenario that even Hawking ( 2018 ) feared. His worry was that richer social groups would genetically modify their children to create a superhuman race with enhanced cognitive abilities, resistance to disease, and quasi-immortality, dividing humanity into genetic “haves” and “have-nots.” This is linked to a further concern, namely, the possible lesser acceptance and tolerance of both physical and mental differences. We have only recently succeeded in introducing the concept of “neurodiversity” to refer to what was previously called a disease or even constituted a stigma, and with gene editing, we could go back to considering individuals affected by them as marked by “lesser genetic quality.” This might lead to discrimination or even to the will to eliminate such people prior to birth, if they cannot be genetically modified. But when it comes to people with severe disabilities, it is not possible to know what life they may have and what contribution they may be able to give to society, as Hawking's case shows. And this calls for further caution.

Furthermore, it is possible that scientific progress will make increasingly refined gene editing techniques available. In this way, there would be more and more high-performing individuals, with each cohort of newborns more efficient than the previous one. It could thus create a stratification of more or less efficient individuals. In this case, it would be more difficult to guarantee fairness and equality of treatment.

A group of British experts, just before He's experiments, has cautiously endorsed genetic editing interventions on embryos, considering such interventions morally permissible so long as they do not contradict a clear principle: “the use of gametes or embryos that have been subject to genome editing procedures (or that are derived from cells that have been subject to such procedures) should be permitted only in circumstances in which it cannot reasonably be expected to produce or exacerbate social division or the unmitigated marginalization or disadvantage of groups within society” (Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2018 : XVII). In my opinion, the principle should be more restrictive, to avoid all the risks related to parental eugenics that I have listed above.

In fact, regardless of a possible moratorium—which does not seem to be on the horizon—the permissibility of human germline editing is being pursued both by a part of the scientific community and by a juridical–normative approach to reproduction that gives legal or biological parents the maximum freedom of choice. But the introduction of the CRISPR-Cas9 technique, which makes it easier than ever before to intervene on DNA, has changed the scenario, because individual reproductive liberty risks reflecting with both predictable composition effects and unpredictable consequences on the entire human species.

Accordingly, doctors and scientists, as well as political and health authorities, should take care not to surrender to the understandable claims of the parents and allow genome-editing on embryos only in a few well-defined cases that involve the risk of death or of extremely disabling life conditions. A day may come when we can all be genetically improved without incurring all the risks mentioned above. Only then I believe that it will be fair to do so.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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