Abstract
The observation that so-called 'genesis questions' - about the creation of lives ab initio raise unique philosophical problems is in danger of becoming trite. In the quarter century since the publication of Derek Parfit's seminal Reasons and Persons, much attention has been dedicated to the obligations we might owe to the future people that we choose to create, and about the thorny question of how our choices might impact on the identities of those people. To what extent, though, have these discussions impacted on how artificial reproductive technologies are actually regulated in practice? In the United Kingdom, at least, recent legislative developments give little encouragement that the insights of academic lawyers and ethicists are guiding policy in this area. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 came into effect in autumn 2009. This paper proposes firstly that parts of the Act fail to answer - or even acknowledge - questions of identity and obligations to future contingent people. Secondly, it asks what an approach grounded in a consistent approach to identity questions might look like. As well as the Parfitian 'non-identity' model, I briefly consider some alternative ways of looking at genesis questions. Ultimately, I conclude that, while the Act certainly does not represent a Parfitian approach to such questions, it is not clear that it does justice to these alternatives; indeed, it displays scant awareness of the wide-ranging and rich philosophical debates that have surrounded these questions since before the first attempt to legislate on reproductive choices.