By Rachel Horton, Benjamin Bell, Angela Fenwick, Anneke Lucassen A child conceived with a donated egg has multiple health problems but no unifying diagnosis. Given that testing of biological parents may help make a genetic diagnosis in a child, is it OK to contact the child’s anonymous egg donor to ask if they would provide […]
Category: Reproduction
Charging migrant women for pregnancy care is a worrying sign of the times
By Arianne Shahvisi and Fionnuala Finnerty Precious is a 26-year-old Eritrean woman who has recently arrived in the UK. She wishes to apply for asylum but is yet to do so. Precious is destitute and is living in a church and relying on the kindness of the Eritrean community. She sees a GP at an […]
Reimagining Uterus Transplantation
By Amani Sampson, Laura Kimberly, Kara Goldman, David Keefe, and Gwendolyn Quinn. In 1931, a transgender woman named Lili Elbe received the first known uterus transplant in a human. Unfortunately, she died from organ rejection complications three months later. Her story is often missing from the emerging ethical discourse surrounding uterus transplantation. Our interest in exploring how uterus […]
IVF add-ons and ethics – where does one draw the line?
By Mila Zemyarska. During the last decade, there has been a boom of new adjunct techniques and interventions, also called IVF add-ons, developed in an attempt to boost IVF success rates. However, these have been introduced to the market and to clinical practice before their efficacy and safety could be properly assessed. Hence, while these add-ons […]
Rogue scientist: the human CRISPR experiment
By Jeanne Snelling and Mike King Chinese researcher, He Jiankui, claims to have implanted CRISPR-cas9 gene-edited embryos into potentially six women resulting in at least one successful pregnancy (of twins). Given the unconventional and inadequate way information has been released by He, and the fact that the research has not had thorough oversight, the facts […]
Claims over human genome editing: scientific irresponsibility at its worst
By Sarah Chan This post first appeared in The Motley Coat on 26 November 2018. The announcement made today, that the world’s first genome-edited babies have been born in China, is of grave ethical concern. In evaluating this news, we should first remember that these claims have not yet been scientifically validated through peer reviewed publication […]
“Harms of Formula” Vs “Benefits of Breastfeeding” : Why we don’t “know” how to talk about the effects of different ways of feeding babies
By Fiona Woollard I’m sitting in a room filled with people who care deeply about mothers and babies. Many of them have dedicated their lives to improving support for new mothers to have the chance to feed their babies in the way they want. Someone is talking about cuts to breastfeeding support or about information provided […]
Artificial wombs: a shift in approach to neonatal intensive care and beyond
By Elizabeth Chloe Romanis What if there was no such thing as being born too premature to survive? Today babies born on the viability threshold (around 24 weeks) have little chance at life, or of a life without serious long-term health problems. Neonatal intensive care can only do so much for babies born with an undeveloped […]
Guest Post: Biological children: an innocent wish?
Article: I love my children: am I racist? On the wish to be biologically related to one’s children Author: Ezio Di Nucci, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Is it morally legitimate to want biological children? There is a general argument about the legitimacy of bringing new people into this world; but there is also a more specific […]
Guest Post: Ethical arguments for access to abortion services in the Republic of Ireland: recent developments in the public discourse.
Authors: Joan McCarthy, Katherine O’Donnell, Louise Campbell, Dolores Dooley Paper: Ethical arguments for access to abortion services in the Republic of Ireland: recent developments in the public discourse Some people argue that abortion is immoral, yet others don’t think so. Some think that abortion is immoral in general, and in the abstract, and yet judge that […]