CONTROLLING OUR REPRODUCTIVE DESTINY: LEGAL PRINCIPLES - THE HARM PRINCIPLE
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The harm principle is most forcefully stated in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. According to Mill, if a human being is a competent adult, then "the sole end for which mankind [is] warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. In other words, unless a competent adult threatens to harm either an individual or society in general, that person is permitted, for example, to use whatever reproduction-controlling or reproduction-aiding techniques she or he wants.
Whatever its virtues, the harm principle is nonetheless plagued with problems of definition. Harm is, after all, a concept that expands and contracts with frustrating ease. On the one hand, if we define harm narrowly as physical abuse and assault only, then whole categories of psychological damage will not count as harm. On the other hand, if we define harm broadly so as to include every imaginable psychological distress, then the person who would do no harm had best move to a deserted island for fear of traumatizing, disquieting, or unsettling another human being. To be sure, the correct definition of harm lies between these extremes but, even if we identify this midpoint today, it is likely to change tomorrow as we recognize new human rights and interests.
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