Christine Overall

Any inquiry into the meaning and implications of the prolongation of the human lifespan requires an investigation of its metaphysical basis and its ethical outcomes. This chapter explains a series of metaphysical and ethical claims about lifespan extension. It highlights a number of arguments that are typically put forward against these claims, and shows the ways in which they are mistaken. Two such claims given in the chapter are: (1) aging and life stages are neither wholly constituted by biological givens, nor wholly understandable in terms of biological parameters; instead, aging and life stages are, in crucial ways, socially constructed; and (2) death is bad, and other things being equal, a longer life is a better life.

This paper will explore some moral and conceptual aspects of the practice of surrogate motherhood. Although I put forward a number of criticisms of existing ideas about this subject, I do not claim to offer a fully developed position. Instead what I have tried to do is to call into question what seem to be some generally accepted assumptions about surrogate motherhood, and to lend plausibility to my view that surrogate motherhood may be morally troubling for reasons not always fully recognized by other writers on this issue. These reasons go beyond the fairly obvious consequentialist concerns about its effects on the persons - particularly the child — involved. A concern for the well being of a child produced by a surrogate is, I believe, entirely justified, but my focus in this paper will be upon the surrogate mother herself.