ASSISTED REPRODUCTION Techniques for creating a baby other

ASSISTED REPRODUCTION Techniques for creating a baby other than by sexual intercourse between a woman and a man. Main techniques: v. Artificial insemination by husband v. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection by donor v. Insemination by using donor eggs or sperm v. Contract pregancy or “surrogacy”

IVF: IN VITRO FERTILIZATION A process whereby a sperm fertilizes an ovulus outside of the body in some fluid medium, and then is placed back into the uterus of the female to allow for natural pregnancy and birth of offspring. Women must either undergo egg retrieval or acquire a donor egg. It provides a way to detour around blocked or damaged fallopian tubes.

IVF has been used to produce more than 5 million babies worldwide since 1978. But nowadays, it is still a controversial field of discussion for bioethical, moral and political issues.

SHOULD IN VITRO FERTILIZATION BE AN OPTION FOR A WOMAN? YES, IT SHOULD

Moral issues on IVF “the child is being treated merely as a means to someone else’s ends, a violation of the Kantian Categorical Imperative that one treat humanity, whether in one’s own person or another, always as an end, and never merely as a means”. Two related moral deficiencies in IVF: first, that the parents involved love their children, at least at their origins, only conditionally, and second, that they treat their children as things, something incompatible with respectful treatment of persons. So what is the difference in the end of biologically or artificially making a baby?

The discard of human zygotes and embryos. Most embryos created by sexual activity are ejected from women’s bodies early in the process of development, the obvious point being that the end result of attempts at fertilization are the same with IVF or straightforward natural processes.

Risks for women’s and fetuses’ health Fertility drugs, ovarian hypestimulation syndrome, spontaneous abortions and bleeding, ectopic pregnancy, multiple pregnancies, blood problems and delay in intellectual and cognitive development. “the major moral issue is whether those undertaking IVF are in a position to make fully informed and autonomous decisions, both about their own health and about that of any resulting children”. Clearly, it means really a lot to some women who see IVF as their only hope for the child they seek, despite the risks for themselves, that one might reasonably conclude that the choice should be theirs.

Alternative possibilities: adoption ü ü ü Many people think that adoption would be a preferable alternative, but: the costs: national and international adoptions are both time and money consuming. Moral issues: possible exploitation of poor young women. “Adopting older children with serious problems may be extremely demanding, and it would be unfair to expect only the infertile couples to take on these children, while the fertile can ignore their plight and have any number of genetically related children. ”

So, why should we condemn this practice? A ban on IVF practice would mean consequently the prohibition of all similar and correlated practices like abortion and contraception. This prohibition would lead to the creation and more frequent adoption of black market procedures which would exponentially endanger the health and sake of women and fetuses. Moreover, the intervention of the state should be limited only at educating women and providing them with more detailed information about these medical treatments. But then, it is up to women’s will to decide whether to resort to IVF, or to decide for a less invasive option.

As femminists have rightly pointed out: “having more choices is not always liberating and beneficial”. Ambra Nicole Strub Alessandra Lucci