RAMDE CANDELARIA

SN - II

BIOETHICS

REPRODUCTIVE ISSUES ; A POSITION PAPER FOR IN VITRO

FERTILIZATION

Background

Reproduction is one of life's essence. It is a fundamental process and feature of all known
life. Reproduction is basically a biological process by which parents are able to produce new
organisms, thus their offsprings. Men and Women are made for each other to produce offsprings.
Good sexual and reproductive health should also be considered because it is very important for a
woman's general health, even for men. Sexual and reproductive health isn't just about their
overall sexual and physical welfare and contentment, this should also be concerned about the
privilege to have healthy relationships, reliable health services, and access to appropriate
information. The choice and settlement whether when to have a baby is totally up to them.

Reproductive health also deals with being able to contribute to solving problems of
infertility for both men and women who want to have a baby but are not sexually capable by
looking for allowable and safer methods. More people should develop looking into the
perspective that healthy reproduction is important to the vitality of life.

Positions and Recommendations

The concern and issue about infertility is on the rise, human reproduction's ethical and
emotional issues are really hard to settle and even slowed down the developments of fertilization
methods.
 Abortion, Surrogacy and In Vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most tackled and the concepts
that are mostly put to mind in relation to human reproduction. Abortion is a very known
procedure that aims to end pregnancy, which also means ending the life of an unborn baby .
Aside from it's common short term side effects such as cramps and bleeding, it also has it's long
term side effects; affects future pregnancy outcomes, risk of breast cancer, mental health disorder
and premature death. Abortion is not widely acceptable in this country due to its ethical and
religion concerns. Surrogacy on the other hand is not very suggestive due to its emotional and
psychological concerns. Surrogacy is a legal arrangement wherein a woman will agree to bear a
couple's child, making her a surrogate mother. Some couples only consider their relationship to
the surrogate mother only during pregnancy but after she bears their child, she would want to be
a part of the baby's life because of the bond they made in her womb, which some couples don't
agree to. It is really an issue who are really considered the true parents. It also happens that in
some surrogacy, the baby would somehow inherit genes from the surrogate mother instead of the
real parents.

The most suggestive and has higher success rates fertilization method is the In Vitro
fertilization (IVF) . It is where sex samples from a man and a woman are extracted and will be
manually combined in a laboratory dish then the embryo (fertilized egg) will be transferred to the
uterus for further development. It is a series of procedures that helps infertility and also prevents
possible genetic problems and later on assist with bearing of child.

It is the most effective assisted reproduction method. IVF offers production of offspring to
couples with various infertility related cases.

An IVF can be an option for reproduction if a one of the couple or both have;

 Fallopian tube damage or blockage

 Ovulation disorders

 Endometriosis

 Uterine fibroids

 Previous tubal sterilzation or removal

  Impaired sperm production

 Unexplained infertlity

 Genetic disorder

 Fertility preservation for cancer

IVF babies are generally and usually healthy. An IVF is done very carefully because a
series of testing is done before proceeding to the IVF procedures. This is done to help a lot of
couples, specially the women to become pregnant. This would help them achieve that emotional
contentment through being finally capable of producing a baby that they could really consider
their own.