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Gilbert Meilaender, The End of Sex: Finis or Telos?, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 25, Issue 2, August 2019, Pages 216–226, https://doi.org/10.1093/cb/cbz004
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Abstract
In a widely noted book, Henry Greely has suggested that “the end of sex” is on the horizon. By this he means that sexual activity for pleasure will be increasingly disconnected from the process by which children are conceived—a result of the growing availability of what he terms Easy PGD. This essay explores the possibility that this sense (i.e., finis) of an “end” of sex fails to attend adequately to another sense of “end”—namely, the telos that connects human sexual activity to the birth of children. Articulating a Christian understanding of procreation, the essay notes that Easy PGD may invite us to miss the human significance of the connection between the love-giving and life-giving aspects of sexual activity.