Beginning of Life Flashcards
What are some key ethical questions about the beginning of life?
- Who should be parents
- What is the remit of assisted reproduction
- Should we choose our children
- What is the status of the embryo and foetus
- How important is maternal autonomy
What are some who should be parents arguements?
- Reproductive rights and responsibilities
- Do clinicians have the right to assess potential parents?
- The fertility paradox: regulation, access and equity
- Balance of autonomy of couple vs non malfeasance against future child
What act protects the welfare of a potential child?
Human Fertilisation Embryology Act 1990
How does the Human Fertilisation Embryology Act 1990 dictate who can get fertility treatment?
- Treatment condition to welfare of child
- Predicting welling being of future person
- Similar criteria for fostering and adoption
- In a set of circumstances, would it be better if the child was not born at all
What are some assisted reproductive techniques?
- Artificial insemination
- In vitro fertilisation (IVF)
- Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)
- Preimplantation genetic testing
- Gamete donation
- Embryo donation
- Surrogacy
What are some opportunies of assisted reproduction?
- Treatment infertility
- Single and same sex parents
- Prevention of inherited conditions
- Fertility preservation
What are some risks/issues of assisted reproduction?
- Sex selection
- “Designer babies”
- The reproductive industry
What are some ethical questions around the treatment of infertility?
- Who are infertile (from medical to social definitions)
- Absolute verses relative barriers to conception
- Who should be offered treatment
- What treatment should be offered
- How should this be funded
What are some ethical issues of pre-implantation genetic testing?
disability free vs designer babies
- Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
- Screening for delayed onset conditions
- Sex selection for family balancing
- Seeking disability (deafness and achondroplasia)
- Saviour siblings (for donating tissue)
- Routine use of pre-implantation genetic testing
What are some arguments about sex selection?
- Has been used to select male embryos
- Undermines the status of woman
- Can lead to gender imbalance
- Against the principle of unconditional parental love
- Can be used for family balancing
What are some arguments about social egg freezing?
- Distinct from egg freezing for medical reasons
- Age related reduction in ovarian reserve
- Technology available
- Provides greater reproductive control
- Is it a medical need
- Financial implications
What are some arguments about the reproductive industry?
- Commercialisation of reproduction
- Reproductive tourism
- Sourcing donor gametes
- Global market in surrogate mothers
- New opportunities for parenthood
- Potential for exploitation
Why are the ethical issues in regards to reproductive cloning?
The source of the cells which come from human embryos
What is the moral status of the human embryo?
- When does life begin
- Mary Warnock and the HFE Act 1990
- Embryos can be used for research up to 14 days after fertilisation]
- This is because this is when the primitive streak forms and the CNS starts to develop
When can embryos be used for research purposes up to?
14 days after fertilisation as the primitive streak develops then
