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Reproductive Technologies

Unintentional contraception

by Anders Sandberg

The pope approves of the use of condoms to fight AIDS: according to an upcoming book he says it is acceptable when the intention is to reduce the risk of infection. While he still views abstinence as the proper way of fighting the disease, "In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality." Now, how does this fit with the doctrine of double effect? According to this doctrine, it is sometimes permissible when acting towards a good result to bring about a foreseen side effect that on its own would be impermissible. Is contraception hence a permissible side effect of trying to reduce infection risk?

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Is Low Libido a Brain Disorder?

by Julian Savulescu

Update: The same misunderstandings are still in evidence, 2 years on (May 2012), for example:  ‘Brain circuitry different for women with anorexia, obesity’

Having started to work in the field of neuroethics a couple of years ago, I have become staggered by the misunderstanding of what neuroscience can tell us. The best example is a recent BBC story which goes by the wonderful title “Libido problems: ‘brain not mind‘” .

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Is it legitimate to ask opponents of embryonic stem cell therapy whether they support IVF?

by Dominic Wilkinson

In the news this week is the first US officially-sanctioned human trial of embryonic stem cells. A patient with spinal cord injury has received an injection of embryo-derived stem cells.

Predictably, the news has not been received positively by those who are opposed to research with embryonic stem cells.

The development, however, was criticized by those with moral objections to research using the cells because days-old embryos are destroyed to obtain them.

"Geron is helping their stock price, not science and especially not patients," said David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council.

The arguments in favour and against embryonic stem cells have been reviewed and rehearsed ad nauseam. I will not repeat them here.

 

But is it reasonable to ask or demand that those who are opposed to ES cells answer 'the question'. What are your views on IVF?

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Critical Care ethics series – the ethics of maxiple pregnancies

by Dominic Wilkinson Quads, Quins, Sexts, Septs, even Octs! High order multiple pregnancies such as the Suleman octuplets in California generate enormous media attention. However, they also raise some unique ethical questions. In the second of a series of seminars on critical care ethics, the neonatal grand round today looked at ethical questions arising from… Read More »Critical Care ethics series – the ethics of maxiple pregnancies

Embrace the controversy: let’s offer Project Prevention on the NHS

A controversial US-based charity that pays drug addicts to undergo sterilisation or long-term contraception has recently opened for business in the UK. Project Prevention pays drug users $300 if they provide a medical certificate of drug dependency and another certifying that they have had tubal ligation, vasectomy or a contraceptive implant. The founder of the charity points to the significant physical and psychological problems in children born to drug-using parents. Noone would deny that it would be good to avoid these problems. Drug counselling often includes advice about contraception, and encouragement of those who are interested to take up options including long term contraception or sterilisation – we don’t think that that is a particular problem. So what is wrong with Project Prevention?

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Should parents be allowed to pick their children’s sex for non-medical reasons?

Once upon
a time, there were a queen and a king who had three children, all of them boys.
They both loved their children dearly and made sure they had everything they
might need to flourish. Nevertheless, the queen and her husband still felt that
their family was incomplete without a daughter. They had hoped to have one
after the birth of their first son, but both of the queen’s subsequent
pregnancies had produced boys. As she was now getting close to the age when she
could no longer reasonably hope to have more children, she and her husband were
worried that their wish for a daughter would never be fulfilled. Finally,
deciding not to leave what might be their last attempt to chance, they traveled through the
kingdom to solicit the assistance of an eminent enchanter. He was a wise man
renowned to have produced many miracles. Feeling sympathy for the royal couple,
the enchanter granted their request and prepared a special brew for them to
drink. Nine months later, the queen gave birth to a
beautiful daughter.

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What is the most moral way to use embryos?

By: Francesca Minerva

Reading this news  about a couple that donated two embryos to another sterile couple, I started to ask myself if embryo donation is really the most moral way to use embryos. Some people, indeed,  suggest that this choice is the one that people who take into account human life should take. We read “The concept of donating embryos to other couples got a push eight years ago under President George W. Bush, who dedicated federal funding to promote, in his terms, “embryo adoption.” The federal funding has since increased to $4.2 million. Now, Georgia has passed the nation's first state law symbolically recognizing embryo adoption”. I am especially skeptical about two issues connected to embryo donation.

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The worth of a life and a life worth living

There has been a lot of discussion about health care rationing in the North American media over the last year, much of it hysterical and barely coherent. A number of respected ethicists have tried to make the case for rationing, including Peter Singer in the New York Times last year, and recently John Freeman.

This week Newsweek Science Editor Sharon Begley asked ‘What is a Life Worth?’ drawing on a recent study presented at the American Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine meeting. Begley noted

“This is the kind of news that unleashes hysteria about "death panels" and "health-care rationing," but here goes: an analysis of genetic screening for an incurable, untreatable disease called spinal muscular atrophy shows that it would cost $4.7 million to catch and avert one case, compared with $260,000 to provide lifetime care for a child born with it. So here's the question: do we say, "Damn the cost; it is worth any price to spare a single child the misery of being unable to crawl, walk, swallow, or move his head and neck"—or do we, as a society, put on the green eyeshades and say, "No, sorry, we can't afford routine screening"?”

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What’s special about selling gametes?

Dominic Wilkinson posted yesterday on the issue of whether payment for egg and sperm donation should be legalised. This question attracted significant media attention yesterday after Lisa Jardine, of the HFEA, called for debate on the existing UK ban on payment for donors. Today's Guardian contains a piece highlighting several ways in which people can already sell their bodily parts or products, ranging from livers to breast milk, and from blood to hair. Sale of many of these bodily parts/products is regarded is ethically problematic, and is, in many cases, illegal. But not in all cases. For example, few would have a problem with the sale of hair for use in wigs.

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Feetility – should we pay egg and sperm donors?

Lisa Jardine, the head of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, has called for public debate about paying egg or sperm donors. Currently donors are given a maximum of £250 in reimbursement for expenses. But donation rates have fallen in recent years, at least in part related to changes in rules in 2005 preventing donor anonymity. As a consequence a significant number of patients seeking donor egg or sperm for in-vitro fertilisation have been forced to travel overseas. In essence Jardine suggests that a regulated local market in donor eggs and sperm may be better than unregulated fertility tourism.

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