From Matt Kelland
Your editorial states: “With the bitter lessons learned from the days of eugenics and the Nazi atrocities, history has taught us that it is not fruitful for society to decide who has the right to reproduce and how” (12 June, p 3).
On the contrary, regulation of reproduction is one of the primary functions of society. Although we, like all animals, have the ability to procreate freely, almost every society has rules to determine who may and may not reproduce. For example, girls are frequently forbidden to procreate until they reach a certain age, even if they become fertile before then. Reproduction between close blood relations is usually forbidden, although the degree of closeness varies with the society. Marriage is a social precursor to reproduction in order to legitimise the offspring. Throughout history and across the world, permission to marry and have children has almost always been a social function.
Extreme forms of social regulation, such as the Nazis, Shaka’s Zulus or the Puritans, are undoubtedly not the way most of us would want a society to operate. But their excesses should not be used as an argument against all forms of social control over individual actions.
Shepton Mallet, Somerset, UK
