Status Updates From Begotten or Made?: Human Pr...

"The practice of producing embryos by IVF with the intention of exploiting their special status for use in research is the clearest possible demonstration of the principle that when we start making human beings, we necessarily stop loving them; that that which is made rather than begotten become something that we have at our disposal, not someone with whom we can engage in brotherly fellowship."

oof, grim reading ch. 3 - which seems very prescient given it was written in 1984 and that 2024 is witnessing just the consequences O'Donovan envisioned 40 years ago

compact, careful, and so much easier to read than the last O'Donovan book I tackled - maybe because these chapter were originally a series of lectures

We have to consider the position of this human "begetting" in a culture which has been overwhelmed by "making" - that is to say, in a technological culture.

To speak of begetting is to speak of... the possibility that one may form another being who will share one's own nature, and with whom one will enjoy a fellowship based on radical equality.