Medical Ethics

Question 1

What is IVF?

Answer 1

In-vitro fertilisation. When the sperm and the egg of a couple are introduced to each-other externally in a test tube and then the embryo is implanted into the womb.

Question 2

What is AID?

Answer 2

Artificial insemination by donor. When a donor’s sperm is artificially injected into the mother’s womb with a syringe.

Question 3

What is AIH?

Answer 3

Artificial insemination by husband. When the husband’s sperm is artificially injected into the mother’s womb with a syringe.

Question 4

What is surrogacy?

Answer 4

When an externally fertilised embryo is implanted into another woman’s uterus.

Question 5

What is the UK law concerning surrogacy?

Answer 5

It is illegal to pay a surrogate mother. The surrogate mother has parental rights over the child.

Question 6

What is the UK law concerning donors?

Answer 6

Egg and sperm donors have no parental rights over their children. Children born by donors have the legal right to request the donor’s identity when they turn 18.

Question 7

What is ‘the sanctity of life’?

Answer 7

The idea that life is something precious, holy and special because it was given to us by God.

Question 8

Explain the idea that life begins before conception and who shares this belief.

Answer 8

The idea that a pre-existing life force enters the body at conception. This is a belief shared by people who believe in reincarnation or rebirth such as Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindus.

Question 9

Explain the idea that life begins at conception and who shares this belief.

Answer 9

The idea that life begins at conception because the sperm and the egg both have living sources. Roman Catholics and some other Christians believe this.

Question 10

What happens after 14 days of pregnancy?

Answer 10

The embryo becomes attached to the womb. At this point experimentation has to stop.

Question 11

What happens at 3 weeks of pregnancy?

Answer 11

The child’s heart begins to beat.

Question 12

What is the ‘quickening’?

Answer 12

The stage after about 9 weeks of pregnancy when movement is first felt in the womb.

Question 13

Explain the idea that life begins at ‘ensoulment’ and who shares this belief.

Answer 13

This is the Muslim idea that 120 days after fertilisation the soul enters the embryo. This is also when the nervous system and brain begin to develop.

Question 14

What is viability?

Answer 14

The point when the child could theoretically survive outside the mother’s body.

Question 15

What is reproductive cloning?

Answer 15

The creation of an identical copy of an organism. It is illegal for humans.

Question 16

What is therapeutic cloning?

Answer 16

The cloning of biological material to help treat diseases.

Question 17

What are some arguments against AID?

Answer 17

The donor is a stranger, inserting the sperm from a man other than the woman’s husband could be seen as adultery, it allows an unmarried woman to have a child and bring it up on her own, and it allows a gay couple to have a child and bring it up in a ‘single-sex home’

Question 18

What are the arguments against fertility treatments?

Answer 18

The main reason for being opposed to fertility treatment is that it is not seen as natural, and is therefore against God, or that the ‘wrong people’ could become parents.

Question 19

What are the disadvantages of fertility treatments?

Answer 19

Success rates are low, it is expensive and some children can lack a sense of belonging without their biological parents.

Question 20

What is transplant surgery?

Answer 20

Transplant surgery is the replacement of a faulty organ with a healthy organ (e.g. heart or lung) taken from a donor, usually shortly after the donor’s brain death.

Question 21

Why are Jehovah’s witnesses against blood transfusion?

Answer 21

They feel their life is carried in their blood so they cannot have anybody else’s blood. This is an interpretation of Leviticus 17:11 - ‘For the life of a creature is in the blood’.

Question 22

Define blood transfusion?

Answer 22

When a patient is given extra blood as part of an operation

Question 23

Define cloning?

Answer 23

The scientific method by which animals or plants can be created which have exactly the same genetic material as the original, because the DNA of the original is used.

Question 24

Define conception.

Answer 24

The moment the sperm fertilises the egg.

Question 25

What are designer babies?

Answer 25

Babies with gender and characteristics chosen by the parents. Currently illegal in the UK.

Question 26

Define Embryo.

Answer 26

A fertilised ovum at about 12-14 days when implanted into the wall of the womb.

Question 27

What is embryology?

Answer 27

The study of human embryos.

Question 28

What is fertility treatment?

Answer 28

Medical procedure to assist an infertile couple to have a child.

Question 29

What are savior siblings?

Answer 29

A sibling genetically compatible with a sick child is implanted and born to provide stem cells to treat the sick child.

Question 30

What is a stem cell?

Answer 30

A cell, most often taken from 4-5 day old embryo, whose role in the body is not yet determined.

Question 31

Define ‘the value of life’

Answer 31

The value of a person, over and above their physical value.

Question 32

Christian quote to show the importance of children.

Answer 32

God said “Be fruitful and increase in number”

Question 33

Islam quote against fertility treatment.

Answer 33

He gives daughters to whom he will and sons to whom he pleases. - Qur’an 42:49

Question 34

Islam quote against adoption and surrogacy.

Answer 34

No one can be their mother except those who gave them birth. - Qur’an 58:2