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In our modern world, sex is no longer the exclusive method by which humans reproduce. Science has created a new group of options known as assisted reproductive technologies, or ART, that challenge our understanding of parenthood and biological relationships. Yet despite the fact that (or perhaps because) these acts of reproduction occur without heterosexual intercourse, taboos around sex still affect societal reactions to these new technologies and serve to obscure their biological, legal, and ethical implications. In a corollary of the socially conservative mandate that all sex be procreative, it appears that the radical right would also demand that all procreation be sexual.
Although social conservatives have not been able to stop the use of ART, they sometimes have found ways to limit its application in a manner that is consistent with their worldview—particularly their ideologically driven definition of when human life begins and, accordingly, becomes endowed with certain rights. If one believes that human life begins at “conception” and if one equates “life” with “personhood,” then logic would have it that human embryos are people with rights.
Of course...
Although social conservatives have not been able to stop the use of ART, they sometimes have found ways to limit its application in a manner that is consistent with their worldview—particularly their ideologically driven definition of when human life begins and, accordingly, becomes endowed with certain rights. If one believes that human life begins at “conception” and if one equates “life” with “personhood,” then logic would have it that human embryos are people with rights.
Of course...