From the beginning, the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies was committed to learning about and understanding the social values and attitudes of Canadians. Commissioners felt that these values and attitudes, which are not static but evolve over time, provide a vital context for decision making about the technologies and must be considered in recommendations of policy in this area.
From the beginning, the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies was committed to learning about and understanding the social values and attitudes of Canadians. Commissioners felt that these values and attitudes, which are not static but evolve over time, provide a vital context for decision making about the technologies and must be considered in recommendations of policy in this area.
This book examines the general attitudes of childless women to assisted reproduction technologies as well as the norms and beliefs concerning partnership, age and burdens related to assisted reproduction technologies based on four focus group discussions and 32 semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The results show that there is an overall positive attitude to assisted reproduction, but that does not necessarily mean that someone would use assisted reproduction if they needed it and considerable differences in views across age groups can be found. Content Childless women's general attitudes to assisted reproductive technology in Hungary Views about what partnership norms are necessary for involvement in assisted reproductive treatments in a pronatalist society Beliefs about age-related restrictions and the burdens related to undergoing assisted reproductive treatments Target groups General readers interested in the topic of assisted reproductive treatments Policymakers who are interested in understanding the embeddedness of social attitudes towards ART in a pronatalist society Family sociologist who are boarder interested in family formations related to beliefs and norms among childless women Author Ivett Szalma, PhD is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and an Associate Professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest (Hungary). She is the Head of the Family Sociology Section of the Hungarian Sociological Association. Her research topics include attitudes towards assisted reproduction technology, childlessness, non-resident fatherhood, post-separation fertility, measurement of homophobia and adoption by same-sex couples.
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.
Adoptive Families in a Diverse Society brings together twenty-one prominent scholars to explore the experience, practice, and policy of adoption in North America. While much existing literature tends to stress the potential problems inherent in non-biological kinship, the essays in this volume consider adoptive family life in a broad and balanced context. Bringing new perspectives to the topics of kinship, identity, and belonging, this path-breaking book expands more than our understandings of adoptive family life; it urges us to rethink the limits and possibilities of diversity and assimilation in American society.
A provocative examination of how unequal access to reproductive technology replays the sins of the eugenics movement Eugenics, the effort to improve the human species by inhibiting reproduction of “inferior” genetic strains, ultimately came to be regarded as the great shame of the Progressive movement. Judith Daar, a prominent expert on the intersection of law and medicine, argues that current attitudes toward the potential users of modern assisted reproductive technologies threaten to replicate eugenics’ same discriminatory practices. In this book, Daar asserts how barriers that block certain people’s access to reproductive technologies are often founded on biases rooted in notions of class, race, and marital status. As a result, poor, minority, unmarried, disabled, and LGBT individuals are denied technologies available to well-off nonminority heterosexual applicants. An original argument on a highly emotional and important issue, this work offers a surprising departure from more familiar arguments on the issue as it warns physicians, government agencies, and the general public against repeating the mistakes of the past.
This document presents papers on the following topics: an overview of the science and technology system; an overview of select social and economic forces influencing the development of in vitro fertilization and related assisted reproductive techniques; an overview of commercial involvement in new reproductive technologies; the role of the biotechnology industry in the development of clinical diagnostic materials for prenatal diagnosis; a report on a survey of members of the pharmaceutical manufacturers association of Canada and biotechnology companies; the potential role of schools in promoting reproductive health and understanding of new reproductive technologies; and social welfare and new reproductive technologies.
Mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) are designed to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diseases from mother to child. While MRTs, if effective, could satisfy a desire of women seeking to have a genetically related child without the risk of passing on mtDNA disease, the technique raises significant ethical and social issues. It would create offspring who have genetic material from two women, something never sanctioned in humans, and would create mitochondrial changes that could be heritable (in female offspring), and therefore passed on in perpetuity. The manipulation would be performed on eggs or embryos, would affect every cell of the resulting individual, and once carried out this genetic manipulation is not reversible. Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques considers the implications of manipulating mitochondrial content both in children born to women as a result of participating in these studies and in descendants of any female offspring. This study examines the ethical and social issues related to MRTs, outlines principles that would provide a framework and foundation for oversight of MRTs, and develops recommendations to inform the Food and Drug Administration's consideration of investigational new drug applications.
Becoming Biosubjects examines the ways in which the Canadian government, media, courts, and everyday Canadians are making sense of the challenges being posed by biotechnologies. The authors argue that the human body is now being understood as something that is fluid and without fixed meaning. This has significant implications both for how we understand ourselves and how we see our relationships with other forms of life. Focusing on four major issues, the authors examine the ways in which genetic technologies are shaping criminal justice practices, how policies on reproductive technologies have shifted in response to biotechnologies, the debates surrounding the patenting of higher life forms, and the Canadian (and global) response to bioterrorism. Regulatory strategies in government and the courts are continually evolving and are affected by changing public perceptions of scientific knowledge. The legal and cultural shifts outlined in Becoming Biosubjects call into question what it means to be a Canadian, a citizen, and a human being.
"The first paper in this volume of studies presents the ethical framework the Commission adopted: a modified ethic of care and a set of guiding principles that were used as a prism through which to view the technologies. The volume then goes on to explore some of the ethical issues raised by the development and use of new reproductive technologies."--
