Law, medicine, ethics and assisted procreation: reconsidering the legal procreative relationship

Abstract

Rights to sexual and reproductive health are generally recognized as an integral part of the right to health. The right to parenthood is a basic human right which is also implemented through assisted procreation. Assisted reproductive technologies (“ARTs”) have enabled many infertile couples to have children but have long been controversial. Opposition initially focused on the “unnaturalness” of laboratory conception and the doubts that healthy children would result. Once children were born, ethical debate shifted to the status and ownership of embryos and the novel forms of family that could result. The ethics of parenthood and procreation apply not only to daily acts of decision-making by parents and prospective procreators, but also to law, public policy, and medicine. Two recent social and technological shifts make this topic especially pressing. First, changing family demographics in Europe mean that children are increasingly reared in blended families, by single parents, or by same-sex partners, prompting questions of who should be considered a child's parent and what good parenting requires. Second, the development and proliferation of ART raises questions concerning access to the technology, its permissibility, and its use to enhance future children or prevent the birth of children with certain conditions.2 The new century has brought forth both new and old ethical concerns. The growing capacity to screen the genomes of embryos has sparked fears of eugenic selection and alteration. Ethical attention has focused on whether all persons seeking ARTs should be granted access to them, regardless of their child-rearing ability, age, disability, health status, marital status, or sexual orientation. The conference paper will focus on the above mentioned issues in the aspect of interaction of ethics, law and policy making regarding ART’s regulation and implementation.