From Survival First to Dignity First in Reproductive Medicine

This paper offers a systematic self-critique of my earlier liberal welfarist approach to the ethics concerning reproduction and enhancement in space missions and settlement. By “liberal welfarism,” I mean an approach that treats procreative and enhancement choices as broadly permissible when they are expected to promote welfare and satisfy safety constraints. I retain many practical conclusions but re-ground them in a dignity-first natural-law framework. The argument reconstructs earlier standards for responsible procreation, the permissibility of enhancement, the ethics of modifying environments versus humans, and the claim that there is no special “space morality.” It defends invariant side constraints—non-instrumental procreation, integrity of human faculties, species reciprocity, and justice between generations—while allowing prudential variation in application. The framework yields three action-guiding principles. The Non-Instrumental Procreation Principle holds that colonization must not be organized so that children are conceived to staff missions or satisfy demographic targets. The Species-Integrity Principle holds that heritable “space-fitness” interventions ordered to project ends are presumptively excluded, while bona fide restorative medicine remains permissible under strict scrutiny. Stewardship-First Environmental Modifications holds that when environmental measures and human re-specification are outcome-parity, priority should be given to reversible and containable environmental approaches. For clinicians and research ethics committees, the framework clarifies limits on parental authority, germline interventions, and technology adoption.