Assessing what counts as infertility has practical implications: access to (state-funded) fertility treatment is usually premised on meeting the criteria that constitute the chosen definition of infertility. In this paper, I argue that we should adopt the expression “involuntary childlessness” to discuss the normative dimensions of people’s inability to conceive. Once this conceptualization is adopted, it becomes clear that there exists a mismatch between those who experience involuntary childlessness and those that are currently able to access fertility treatment. My concern (...) in this article is explaining why such a mismatch deserves attention and what reasons can be advanced to justify addressing it. My case rests on a three-part argument: that there are good reasons to address the suffering associated with involuntary childlessness; that people would decide to insure against it; and that involuntary childlessness is characterized by a prima facie exceptional kind of desire. (shrink)

The institution of the family and its importance have recently received considerable attention from political theorists. Leading views maintain that the institution’s justification is grounded, at least in part, in the non-instrumental value of the parent-child relationship itself. Such views face the challenge of identifying a specific good in the parent-child relationship that can account for how adults acquire parental rights over a particular child—as opposed to general parental rights, which need not warrant a claim to parent one’s biological progeny. (...) I develop a view that meets this challenge. This Project View identifies the pursuit of a parental project as a distinctive non-instrumentally valuable good that provides a justification for the family and whose pursuit is necessary and sufficient for the acquisition of parental rights. This view grounds moral parenthood in a normative relation as opposed to a biological one, supports polyadic forms of parenting, and provides plausible guidance in cases of assisted reproduction. (shrink)

Bioethics has increasingly become a standard part of medical school education and the training of healthcare professionals more generally. This is a promising development, as it has the potential to help future practitioners become more attentive to moral concerns and, perhaps, better moral reasoners. At the same time, there is growing recognition within bioethics that nonideal theory can play an important role in formulating normative recommendations. In this chapter we discuss what this shift toward nonideal theory means for ethical curricula (...) within healthcare education. In particular, we contend that more attention to the particularities of historical and social context needs to be incorporated into bioethics training. To make this argument, we focus on two examples: teaching units on race and medicine and those that focus on stigma and coercion in mental health. For both, we show how a pedagogical approach in which educators focus on social injustice could influence how practitioners engage in ethics in the clinic. This chapter, then, demonstrates what a commitment to nonideal theory can mean practically when it comes to bioethics education. (shrink)

Claims about whether or not infertility is a disease are sometimes invoked to defend or criticize the provision of state-funded treatment for infertility. In this paper, I suggest that this strategy is problematic. By exploring infertility through key approaches to disease in the philosophy of medicine, I show that there are deep theoretical disagreements regarding what subtypes of infertility qualify as diseases. Given that infertility's disease status remains unclear, one cannot uncontroversially justify or undermine its claim to medical treatment by (...) claiming that it is or is not a disease. Instead of focusing on disease status, a preferable strategy to approach the debate about state-funded treatment is to explicitly address the specific ethical considerations raised by infertility. I show how this alternative strategy can be supported by a recent theoretical framework in the philosophy of medicine, which avoids the problems associated with the concepts of health and disease. (shrink)

A dominant trend in the philosophical literature on abortion has been concerned with the question of whether the fetus has moral status and how such a status might or might not conflict with women's liberties. However, a new and powerful trend against abortion requires philosophical examination. We refer to this trend as the paternalistic argument. In a nutshell, this argument holds that, insofar as motherhood is a constitutive end of women's well-being, abortion harms women; thus, abortion is wrong and should (...) be prohibited, restricted, or avoided when possible regardless of the moral status of the fetus. In this article we undertake three tasks. First, we analyze four variations of this reasoning: what we call the Kantian PA, the Aristotelian PA, the Catholic Church PA, and the Psychological PA. Second, we show how some public policies that regulate or prohibit abortion around the world are now in fact following paternalistic justifications and imposing distinctive paternalistic restrictions ; we refer to these policies as “the new abortion laws.” Finally, we argue that both the four paternalistic arguments presented and the new abortion laws are at times ill-intentioned, comprehensive in nature and thus unsuited for guiding public policy, empirically flawed, or else unjustified. (shrink)

Since the 1980’s, surrogacy has become a popular reproductive alternative for individuals experiencing infertility. The ethical and legal analyses of surrogacy have been rich and varied. Some bioethicists have charged the commercial surrogacy industry with the exploitation of global southern women or with the impermissible commodification of children and women’s reproductive capacities. Others have praised the potential for economic empowerment and bodily autonomy that surrogacy may accord to women. However, throughout these explorations of the ethics of surrogacy, comparatively little attention (...) has been paid to the moral status of a crucial actor: the fertility doctor. Without doctors willing to provide prenatal and postnatal care to surrogates and make use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), commercial surrogacy would not take place. Yet, doctors’ involvement in surrogacy is far from morally neutral. In my thesis, I aim to explore what duties doctors have in the context of commercial surrogacy. To do so, I take up the framework of fiduciary obligation. I argue that doctors have fiduciary obligations to surrogates, and that these obligations shape if and when doctors can ethically facilitate surrogacy. My thesis is divided into four chapters. The first defends the view that the doctor-patient relationship is fiduciary in nature. The second chapter extends this view to the realm of commercial surrogacy, arguing that doctors also owe the surrogates they treat fiduciary obligations. The third chapter addresses a challenge posed by my view, namely that surrogacy seems to place doctors in positions where they constantly face conflicts of interest, and are therefore unable to uphold their fiduciary duty of loyalty to surrogates. I address this concern by arguing that conflicts of interest are not inherent in surrogacy, but that surrogacy arrangements must be substantially rethought in order to safeguard the doctor-surrogate fiduciary relationship. The final chapter considers the obligations doctors have to the children they help create through surrogacy and through assisted reproduction more generally. (shrink)

Many countries are experiencing increasing levels of demand for access to assisted reproductive technologies. Policies regarding who can access ART and with what support from a collective purse are highly contested, raising questions about what state responses are justified. Whilst much of this debate has focused on the status of infertility as a disease, we argue that this is something of a distraction, since disease framing does not provide the far-reaching, robust justification for state support that proponents of ART seem (...) to suppose. Instead, we propose that debates about appropriate state responses should consider the various implications for health and broader well-being that may be associated with difficulties starting a family. We argue that the harms and disruption to valued life projects of subfertility-related suffering may provide a stronger basis for justifying state support in this context. Further, we suggest that, whilst ART may alleviate some of the harm resulting from subfertility, population-level considerations can indicate a broader range of interventions aimed at tackling different sources of subfertility-related harm, consistent with broader public health aims. (shrink)

Equality of Opportunity is widely thought of as the normative ideal most relevant to the design of educational institutions. One widely discussed interpretation of this ideal is Rawls' principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I argue that theories, like Rawls, that give priority to the achievement of individual autonomy, are committed to giving that same priority to a principle of sufficient opportunity. Thus, the Rawlsian's primary focus when designing educational institutions should be on sufficiency and not equality. (...) The paper then argues this commitment has at least three attractive implications. Firstly, it enables defenders of Fair Equality of Opportunity to overcome Richard Arneson's powerful objections. Secondly, it suggests a revised version of the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity that is more plausible. Thirdly, it has attractive practical implications for educational provision. (shrink)

This paper comes out of a panel honoring the work of Anne Donchin (1940-2014), which took place at the 2016 Congress of the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) in Edinburgh. My general aim is to highlight the contributions Anne made to feminist bioethics, and to feminist reproductive ethics in particular. My more specific aim, however, is to have a kind of conversation with Anne, through her work, about whether reproductive justice could demand insurance coverage for in vitro (...) fertilization. I quote liberally from Anne’s work for this purpose, but also to shower the reader with her words, reminding those of us who knew her well what a wonderful colleague she was. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that the strongest case for permitting non‐medical sex selection is where parents aim at family balance. This piece criticizes one representative attempt to justify sex selection for family balance. Kluge (2007) assumes that some couples may seek sex selection because they hold discriminatory values, but this need not impugn those who merely have preferences, without evaluative commitments, for a particular sex. This is disputed by those who see any sex selection as inherently sexist because it upholds (...) stereotypes about the sexes. This article takes an alternative approach. I argue that, even if we accept that preference‐based selection is unobjectionable, a policy permitting selection for family balancing does a poor job of distinguishing between value‐based and preference‐based selection. If we wish to permit only preference‐based sex selection we should seek to identify parents’ motives. If we wish to justify a family balancing policy, other arguments are needed. (shrink)

Many countries tightly ration access to publicly funded fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilisation. One basis for excluding people from access to IVF is their body mass index. In this paper, I consider a number of potential justifications for such a policy, based on claims about effectiveness and cost-efficiency, and reject these as unsupported by available evidence. I consider an alternative justification: that those whose subfertility results from avoidable behaviours for which they are responsible are less deserving of treatment. (...) I ultimately stop short of endorsing or rejecting such a justification, though highlight some reasons for thinking it is unlikely to be practicable. (shrink)

Definition of the problemThe options of reproductive medicine are expanding. In some cases, it is unclear whether there is a medical indication for applying procedures of assisted reproduction or whether this application is wish-fulfilling. The distinction between medical indication and wish fulfilment depends on the concept of indication. Thus, the concept of indication has a special status in reproductive medicine. The distinction between medical indication and wish-fulfilling treatment is mostly based on implicit or explicit normative judgements, rather than on mere (...) clinical facts. The use of “indicated” suggests a purely empirical-clinical judgment, whereas the normative judgements behind the concept are concealed. The aim of this paper is to analyze the normative implications of indication in reproductive medicine. Therefore, the concept of indication and its special status within reproductive medicine is scrutinized.ArgumentsThe analysis shows that the normative implications of indication are tied to a sociocultural script of parenthood, which manifests in the regulations of reimbursement. This script encompasses societal views, norms, and role models, and can be described as “good parenting”. The script of good parenting acts as a regulatory instance that determines the access to procedures of assisted reproduction. It is based on traditional heteronormative concepts of marriage and family, and reserves reproduction exclusively for heterosexual, married couples.ConclusionThe sociocultural script of good parenting in reproductive medicine implies a contradiction: Assisted reproduction technologies provide the opportunity of reproduction for individuals outside the heteronormative frame, yet they are legitimized and limited by this exact frame. (shrink)

Die Möglichkeiten der Reproduktionsmedizin erweitern sich ständig. Bei einigen Maßnahmen assistierter Reproduktion ist es oft unklar, ob eine Indikation vorliegt oder ob diese Maßnahmen als wunscherfüllend anzusehen sind. Die Unterscheidung zwischen medizinisch indizierter Maßnahme und wunscherfüllender Behandlung hängt von dem hier verwendeten Konzept der Indikation ab. Daher kommt dem Konzept der Indikation auf dem Gebiet der Reproduktionsmedizin ein besonderer Stellenwert zu. Dabei fällt auf, dass die Abgrenzung zwischen medizinisch indizierter Behandlung und Wunschbehandlung nicht allein klinisch begründet ist, sondern implizit oder (...) explizit normative Urteile enthält. Der sprachlich-kommunikative Aspekt spielt hierbei eine zentrale Rolle. Der übliche Sprachgebrauch von „indiziert“ suggeriert ein Urteil, das allein auf empirisch-klinischen Fakten basiert, und verdeckt die normativen Urteile, die in das Konzept der Indikation einfließen. Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrags ist es, den normativen Gehalt der Indikation in der Reproduktionsmedizin zu analysieren. Grundlage ist die eingehende Betrachtung des Konzepts der Indikation und der besonderen Stellung der Indikation in der Reproduktionsmedizin. Aus dieser Betrachtung ergibt sich, dass der normative Gehalt der Indikation von einem soziokulturellen Skript bezüglich Elternschaft geprägt ist, das sich v. a. im Leistungsrecht niederschlägt. Dieses Skript enthält gesellschaftliche Anschauungen, Normen und Rollenbilder und kann als „gute Elternschaft“ bezeichnet werden. Das Skript der guten Elternschaft wirkt als Regulativ, das durch leistungsrechtliche Vorgaben über den Zugang zu reproduktionsmedizinischen Maßnahmen bestimmt. Es basiert auf traditionellen heteronormativen Ehe- und Familienkonzepten und sieht Elternschaft für heterosexuelle, verheiratete Paare vor. Somit ergibt sich der Widerspruch, dass Verfahren der Reproduktionsmedizin, die den Raum für die Fortpflanzung jenseits traditionell-heteronormativer Konzepte öffnen, von ebenjenen Konzepten legitimiert und limitiert werden. (shrink)

People who are involuntarily childless need to use assisted reproductive technologies if they want to have a genetically related child. Yet, from an ethical point of view it is unclear to what extent assistance to satisfy this specific desire should be warranted. We first show that the subjectively felt harm due to the inability to satisfy this reproductive desire does not in itself entail the normative conclusion that it has to be met. In response, we evaluate the alternative view according (...) to which the satisfaction of this desire is regarded as a way to meet one’s presumed intermediate need for parenthood. This view presupposes that parenthood is one of those general categories of experiences and activities that contribute an irreplaceable value to people’s lives, but the central difficulty is to find those characteristics that mark out parenthood as an irreplaceable constituent of a valuable life. We go on to argue, however, that even if one assumes that parenthood is such an irreplaceable constituent that makes life more valuable, this does not necessarily entail a moral duty to satisfy the desire for genetic parenthood. We conclude that there is a pro tanto obligation to help people conceive a genetically related child (if this is what they prefer), but that this can be outweighed by other moral considerations, such as safety and justice concerns. (shrink)

In their recently published target article, Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) summarize the ethical issues at play in both the case for and the case against using NIPT to screen for non-medical traits.The...

People have various desires, but it is a contested moral issue when a desire becomes of such importance that it legitimizes a moral claim on others. This paper explores how the normative significance of desire satisfaction can be assessed and argues that a normatively significant desire can constitute a pro tanto obligation to help satisfy it. The paper presents a framework that relates the normative significance of a given desire to the general goal of living a reasonably valuable life and (...) inquires how the latter can be given determinate content without excluding a heterogeneity of the personal good. The paper contends that the set of possibly normatively significant desires is thus restricted by considerations about intelligibility, adequacy, and replaceability, which are mediated by societal background theories. (shrink)

Elizabeth Chloe Romanis argues that surrogacy, uterine transplantation (UTx) and ectogestation belong to a genus of ‘assisted gestative technologies” (“AGTs”).1 These technologies are conceptually distinct from assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) in that they support gestation rather than conception. Romanis argues that they also raise some overlapping ethical and policy issues that are best appreciated by ‘considering these technologies together’, thus placing the issues that AGT’s share at the forefront of ethical analysis. The neologism ‘AGTs’ picks out a distinctive and important (...) category of technologies, and there is value in considering the ethical parallels between various AGT’s. However, the category of AGTs should provide neither the only nor the main level of ethical analysis. Surrogacy, UTx and ectogestation share important parallels not only with each other but also with other practices; indeed, some of these parallels are stronger than those AGT’s share with each other. Consider ectogestation. One striking implication of ‘artificial placentas’ is that they may make it possible to terminate a pregnancy without causing the death of the fetus. This is noteworthy in part because it threatens to disrupt one influential defence of abortion rights: that they are protected by something like a moral right to bodily integrity. Once fetuses can be transferred to artificial wombs, bodily integrity would no longer support a …. (shrink)