This book evaluates some of the most common ethical issues confronted by reproductive endocrinologists, embryologists, and their teams. The authors apply core ethical principles and approaches to problem solving to each of the cases raised. This work is a guide for both those on the front lines of patient care as well as for students in the field, whatever their background. By outlining sample cases, the book is an instigator for ethical discussions among ethicists, medical practitioners and students.
This title was first published in 2003. Assisted conception is an area where it often seems that all the ethical and legal issues have been covered and then technology advances and the discussions start all over again. The book is an anthology of papers presented during a project looking at thearaputic research in assisted conception (TRAC). It is divided into three areas addressing research, ethics and law. Each chapter begins with an overview of the issues, with the aim being to present new perspectives rather than covering old ground. The European Convention on Human rights and Biomedicine came into force on December 1, 1999. The Convention allows thearaputic research and research on spare embryos but forbid fundamental research, which may be essential to the safe development of new techniques. This also means that people may become part of an experimental process without their consent. The project brings together clinicians, embryologists, lawyers and ethicists to ascertain whether there might be a risk of infertility patients being exposed to insufficiently tested procedures and to see if there is a need for fundamental research in this area. It also looks at the legislative safeguards that exist and whether a European standard for treatment should be set.
Ethics of Assisted Reproductive Medicinecompares and contrasts Western and Islamic models of bioethics to make the case that the Islamic perspective (taken from the Qur’an and the Sunnah) provides a viable and clear alternative that goes beyond the dominance of the secular and its various philosophical bases, to give Revelation and spiritual understanding precedence. In doing so, keeping to principles, it charts the way out of a confused circle of opinion that is making it very hard to decide “what is best.”
The new reproductive technologies (NRTs) have given rise to new ethical questions that are widely debated. This book, the outcome of a European Union-wide collaborative process, draws on the experience and expertise of ethicists, lawyers, and clinical practitioners and focuses on some of the "burning issues" in different European countries. These include: donor insemination; surrogacy; preimplantation genetic diagnosis; embryo research; access to IVF treatment; and parental, professional and social responsibility. Familiar notions such as quality of life, parenthood, mothering, responsibility and personal identity surface at many points throughout the book and are refashioned to accommodate new questions. This book introduces and probes ethical questions and challenges in a hands-on way by working through relevant case studies with key commentaries and activities. It engages the reader directly in ethical reasoning and decision-making and provides clear explanations, insightful commentaries and informed debate on NRTs.
By all indicators, the reproductive health of Americans has been deteriorating since 1980. Our nation is troubled by rates of teen pregnancies and newborn deaths that are worse than almost all others in the Western world. Science and Babies is a straightforward presentation of the major reproductive issues we face that suggests answers for the public. The book discusses how the clash of opinions on sex and family planning prevents us from making a national commitment to reproductive health; why people in the United States have fewer contraceptive choices than those in many other countries; what we need to do to improve social and medical services for teens and people living in poverty; how couples should "shop" for a fertility service and make consumer-wise decisions; and what we can expect in the futureâ€"featuring interesting accounts of potential scientific advances.
Ethical dilemmas are more common in assisted reproduction than in any other area of medicine. Providing a framework for discussing and articulating to patients the topical issues in assisted reproduction, this text examines the ever-changing interaction between ethics, society, and scientific advances in the area. This third volume of ethical debates includes chapters on assisted reproduction for parents with HIV and Hep-C, posthumous reproduction and non-Christian religious ethics in relation to assisted reproduction.
This book offers a comprehensive roadmap for determining when and how to regulate risky reproductive technologies on behalf of future children. First, it provides three benchmarks for determining whether a reproductive practice is harmful to the children it produces. This framework synthesizes and extends past efforts to make sense of our intuitive, but paradoxical, belief that reproductive choices can be both life-giving and harmful. Next, it recommends a process for reconciling the interests of future children with the reproductive liberty of prospective parents. The author rejects a blanket preference for either parental autonomy or child welfare and proposes instead a case-by-case inquiry that takes into account the nature and magnitude of the proposed restrictions on procreative liberty, the risk of harm to future children, and the context in which the issue arises. Finally, he applies this framework to four past and future medical treatments with above average risk, including cloning and genetic engineering. Drawing lessons from these case studies, Peters criticizes the current lack of regulatory oversight and recommends both more extensive pre-market testing and closer post-market monitoring of new reproductive technologies. His moderate, pragmatic approach will be widely appreciated.
In vitro fertilization, embryo freezing and surrogate motherhood have promised liberation from the procreative destinies consigned to us by nature and held out the prospect of parenting for many infertile couples and individuals. Yet technological breakthroughs in assisted reproduction are also haunted by the spectre of a Huxleyan Brave New World, with its chilling vision of mass-production reproduction, and have forced individuals and society to address perennial questions about the quest for parenthood, the kinds of family bonds - genetic, biological, or social - we value, and the balance between private choices and societal responsibility. This volume of essays and case studies reprinted from the Hastings Centre Report illumines the difficult value choices imposed on us by the powers and possibilities of the new reproductive technologies from a variety of philosophic, policy and cultural perspectives.
This is a compact, clearly written textbook on ethical concerns in assisted reproduction, including the ethical implications of the very newest techniques, by an exceptionally qualified team of medical experts and representatives of patients' groups and human rights advocacy. Key chapters cover access to fertility treatments, embryo research, gametes and embryo donation, surrogacy, sex selection and human rights, responsibility to the potential child, preimplantation diagnosis and the eugenics debate, and multiple pregnancies and fetal reduction. Includes bibliographic references and index.
