Human Rights and Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART): A Contractarian Approach

Marcelo De Araujo

doi:10.7202/1073798ar

Abstract

What are human rights? Do they exist? I propose to answer these questions by advancing a contractarian account of human rights. I focus on the human right to found a family and have children. I also show how the contractarian approach to human rights can explain the current relevance of reproductive rights in the human rights discourse, and how the emergence of ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies) has contributed to this shift. The contractarian account of human rights asks, firstly, the following question: which basic needs and desires can be ascribed to any human being regardless of gender, nationality, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity etc.? Having an interest, for instance, in preserving one’s own bodily integrity, freedom, and private property qualifies as a basic human need or basic desire. But a basic human need or desire does not constitute in itself a human right. Secondly, the contractarian account of human rights asks, then, which basic human needs or basic desires individuals and states representatives would consider so important that they would agree to create institutional frameworks, both at the domestic and international level, in such a way as to enable individuals to pursue the fulfilment of their basic needs or desires without state interference. Human rights exist and can only be claimed in the context of these normative frameworks.

Highlights

I de fonder une famille et d’avoir des enfants
Human rights constitute a particular kind of moral claim, namely, a claim that is directed at the state or the system of states as a whole
Was the interest in generating children not immediately perceived as a claim that might have the status of a human right at that stage of the dialogic process, which the contractarian account conceptualizes on a higher level of abstraction? There are at least two reasons for this

Summary

Introduction

I de fonder une famille et d’avoir des enfants. Je montre show how the contractarian approach to human rights can également comment l’approche contractuelle des droits de explain the current relevance of reproductive rights in the human l’homme peut expliquer la pertinence actuelle des droits rights discourse, and how the emergence of ART (Assisted reproductifs dans le discours sur les droits de l’homme, et Reproductive Technologies) has contributed to this shift. This, does not mean that before the publication of the relevant documents men and women could not rely on other moral reasons to support their claim to be able to found a family and have children without state interference.

Results

Conclusion