The individual descendants can be said to have been harmed from conception or birth because of the lack of sufficient compensation to their parents (Sher 2005; and see Butt 2006, Cohen 2008, and Herstein 2008).
Asymmetrical harms in conception decisions have been discussed previously (McMahan 2009).
For instance, someone who has a narrow conception of harm, might believe that evil actions need not be harmful.
Still, the standard sense of having been wronged clearly means having been victimized in some way by an injustice, an evil, or, on a broader conception of harm such as that of Feinberg, a setback to one's interests.
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Not all researchers or clinicians expressed a clear conception of harm, and of those that did, not all described it along these lines.
If it is evil to sadistically, yet painlessly, destroy someone's reputation, and only painful experiences are harmful, then some evil actions are not harmful (for more about different conceptions of harm see Nagel 1970; Kagan 1998, 29 41).
Experts' conceptions of harm were also important, however, and box 1 describes several examples of ways in which the combination of experts' conception and prioritisation of 'avoiding harm' might affect their level of support for breast screening.
To ease my conscience, I search for tangible proof that donor-conceived children are not psychologically harmed by their very conception.
(For further discussion of these different conceptions of harm to others see e.g., Dyzenhaus 1992, Feinberg 1987).
