Main description:

Intimate and medicalized, natural and technological, reproduction poses some of the most challenging ethical dilemmas of our time. Reproduction presses the boundaries of humanity and ethical respect, the permissible limits of technology, conscientious objection by health care professionals, and social justice. This volume brings together scholars from multiple perspectives to address both traditional and novel questions about the rights and responsibilities of human
reproducers, their caregivers, and the societies in which they live.

Among issues treated in the volume are what it is to be a parent, the responsibilities of parents, and the role of society in facilitating or discouraging parenting. May gamete donors be anonymous? Is surrogacy in which a woman gestates a child for others ethically permissible when efforts are made to prevent coercion or exploitation? Should it be mandatory to screen newborns for potentially serious conditions, or permissible to sequence their genomes? Are both parties to a reproductive act
equally responsible to support the child, even if one deceived the other? Are there ethical asymmetries between male and female parents, and is the lack of available contraceptives for men unjust? Should the costs of infertility treatment be socially shared, as they are for other forms of health
care? Do parents have a duty to try to conceive children under the best circumstances they can - or to avoid conception if the child will suffer? What is the status of the fetus and what ethical limits constrain the use of fetal tissue?

Reproduction is a rapidly changing medical field, with novel developments such as mitochondrial transfer or uterine transplantation occurring regularly. And there are emerging natural challenges, too, like the Zika virus. The volume gives readers tools not only to address the problems we now know, but ones that may emerge in the future as well.

Contents:

Introduction
Leslie Francis

Part 1. Society

Chapter 1. The Discursive Context of Reproductive Ethics, Amy Cabrera Rasmussen.

Chapter 2. Access to Reproductive Rights: Global Challenges, Sheelagh McGuinness and Heather Widdows.

Chapter 3. Constructing the Abortion Argument, Rosamond Rhodes.

Chapter 4. Victims of Trafficking, Reproductive Rights, and Asylum, Diana Meyers.

Chapter 5. The Commodification of Women's Reproductive Tissue and Services. Donna Dickenson.

Chapter 6. 21st Century Eugenics, Christopher Gyngell and Michael Selgelid.

Chapter 7. Procreative Rights in a Post-Coital World, Kimberly Mutcherson.

Chapter 8. Reproduction as a Civil Right, Anita Silvers & Leslie Francis.

Part 2. Providers

Chapter 9. Conscientious Objection in Reproductive Health, Armand Antommaria.

Chapter 10. The Role of Providers in Assisted Reproduction: Potential Conflicts, Professional Conscience and Personal Choice, Judith Daar.

Chapter 11. Ethical Issues in Newborn Screening, Jeffrey R. Botkin.

Part 3. Parents

Chapter 12. How We Acquire Parental Rights, Norvin Richards.

Chapter 13. Mothers and Others: Relational Autonomy in Parenting, Sara Goering.

Chapter 14. Procreators' Duties: Sexual Asymmetries, Don Hubin.

Chapter 15. Reproductive Control for Men. For Men? Margaret P. Battin.

Chapter 16. Societal Disregard for the Needs of the Infertile, David Orentlicher.

Chapter 17. Is Surrogacy Ethically Problematic? Leslie Francis.

Chapter 18. Parents with Disabilities, Adam Cureton.

Chapter 19. Late-in-life Motherhood: Ethico-Legal Perspectives on the Postponement of Childbearing and Access to Artificial Reproductive Technologies, Imogen Goold.

Chapter 20. Justice, Procreation, and the Costs of Having and Raising Disabled Children, David Wasserman.

Chapter 21. Ethical Issues in the Evolving Realm of Egg Donation, Lorna A. Marshall.

Chapter 22. Sperm and Egg Donor Anonymity: Legal and Ethical Issues, I. Glenn Cohen.

Chapter 23. Who Am I When I'm Pregnant? Hilde Lindemann.

Part 4. Last but not Least: Zygote, Blastocyst, Embryo, Fetus, Newborn

Chapter 24. Contemplating the Start of Someone, Adam Kadlac.

Chapter 25. The Possibility of Being Harmed by One's Own Conception, Janet Malek.

Chapter 26. Understanding Procreative Beneficence, Julian Savulescu and Guy Kahane.

Chapter 27. Opting for Twins in IVF: What Does Procreative Responsibility Require? Bonnie Steinbock.

Chapter 28. Procreative Responsibility in View of What Parents Owe Their Children, David DeGrazia.