The Family, Where to? From the „Solid” Perspective to „Liquid” Perspective

The development of techniques and technologies nowadays offers multiple options on how we wish to live our lives, to improve the unwanted aspects of our bodies, to edit our genes in order for our offspring to be more resistant to diseases or to prolongue our lives by loading our consciousness into a digital device. The new technologies and the emergence of the Internet changed the way in which the individual relates with the others. The access to information is much easier, and this aspect led to a change in the individual’s behaviour, the family also suffering transformations. For example, the social networks and the dating websites offer the individual the possibility to choose a partner based on characteristics such as the zodiac sign, hair or eye color, preferences, etc. In our paper we wish to analyse the transformations that might take place in the family considering the new scientific discoveries in reproduction in the transhumanist context. One of the scenarios who sparked controversies is the fact that due to the new medical technologies, there might be possible to create individuals from cells harvested from two persons of the same sex, but also to create embryos from the cells of the same person (solo-reproduction) (Cutaș, Smajor, 2016). Aside from the bioethics and moral implications this type of actions involves, we wish to bring to the fore the principle of responsibility towards the human non-presence or the non-human presence, while the creation of improved individuals or the possibility of having children created from the cells of a single individual are aspects that raise multiple questions referring to the way in which conception has evolved. Besides the fact that the new technologies make it possible to conceive children from one single person, the sexual relationships have reached a whole new dimension too: futurologists support the idea according to which in the next years, sex with robots will be possible and affordable, therefore there will be no more need for a human partner in order to fulfil one’s sexual needs. Thus, in order to procreate, an individual will no longer be necessary, and in order to fulfil the sexual needs, the partner could be a robot imitating the sexual partner’s behaviour. In our paper, we will analyse the way in which the family has evolved, so we will bring into discussion the traditional perspective and the current tendencies given by the new technologies.