Pediatrics in Review
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(Pediatrics in Review. 1999;20:34-35. doi:10.1542/10.1542/pir.20-8-e34)
© 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics
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The Ethics, Not the Legality of IVF

Jane Donohue Battaglia, MD, MA*
* Associate Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, Pediatrics, and Preventive Medicine (Program in Health Care Ethics, Humanities, and Law), University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO.

Introduction

This response to "The Ethics of In Vitro Fertilization" will address several issues: social and physical stresses on women, avoiding harm and doing good, questions of autonomy and justice, personhood, and the treatment of embryos and fetuses, especially multifetal pregnancy reduction.

Pressures on Women

Donchin has hard words about pressures on women: "With thec advent of new fertility technologies, social pressure to produce biologically related children is again intensifying," "... infertile women are urged to fulfill their `full reproductive potential' regardless of economic, psychological or bodily cost," and "... feminist analyses frequently show how the market for these techniques is socially constructed." (Donchin, 1996) Nevertheless, Donchin maintains that there is a strong emotional need that is not influenced by social pressures. This need even has been called instinctual, which is reminiscent of the famous "maternal instinct" that supposedly endows women with an inborn knowledge of nurturing behavior, but that actually is learned. New mothers, after all, must be taught how to nurse their infants!

Infertility is not simply a biologic problem to be solved by the appropriate technology. It is a "... socially defined and interpreted category...." (Sherwin, l992) Neither Donchin nor Sherwin deny that women desire biologic children, but they emphasize the social and economic pressures that far too often are downplayed or ignored. Men also . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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