ARTIFICIAL

REPRODUCTION AND IT’S

MORALITY
JOY LYZETTE R. CARREON, RN, MAN
ETHICAL ISSUES

• 1. Is it morally permissible to procreate outside

marriage?
• 2. Is it morally permissible to separate conception from
the act of sexual union?
• 3. Is it morally permissible to allow fertilization outside
the womb?
• 4. Is it morally permissible to allow a couple to use AI as
justification for childlessness?
• When couples find themselves childless because
of male infertility, they have several choices.
• They can remain childless and learn to cope with
their disappointment, or they can adopt someone
else's child.
• A third alternative is artificial insemination.
ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION

• is the most simple and oldest method in assisted

reproductive technology, which has a low degree of
complexity.
• Artificial insemination is the deliberate introduction of
sperm into a female's cervix or uterine cavity for the
purpose of achieving a pregnancy through in vivo
fertilization by means other than sexual intercourse or in
vitro fertilization
MEDICAL INDICATIONS

1. Men in whom there is a considerable reduction in the

number of sperm, reduction in vitality of the sperm
2. Women in whom there is an obstruction to the passage
of the sperm from the vagina through the cervix into
the endometrial cavity
3. In instances when the husband is impotent
4. Couples of which one mate suffers from a disability of
any interference with body mechanics that makes
intercourse or intromission impossible.
5. Husbands with anatomic structural defects of the
urethra causing the semen to flow either outside introitus
or into the husband’s bladder
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL EFFECTS

• AI offers certain potential psychological benefits over

the alternative of adoption.
• Both husband and wife can be involved in the pregnancy
from conception onward, sharing the experience of
delivery and the early days of the baby's life.
• There is a greater chance that the child's physical
appearance will at least match that of the mother, and if
there are several children they are more likely to
resemble one another.
• AI thus threatens to evoke very deep-seated feelings of
helpless dependence in relationship to women and also
feelings of inadequacy in relation to other men."
• The husband may psychologically withdraw from the
home, investing his energy in his work or other forms of
self-achievement by which he may hope to regain his
sense of masculinity
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Joseph Fletcher, the father of "situation ethics;' takes a

view that does not require of the marital bond a physical
monopoly
• He stresses the "personal" character of the marriage
covenant, and goes on to assert that since no personal
relationship is entered into with the donor, AID is
acceptable when mutually agreed upon by husband and
wife.
• In such a case there is no broken faith, no infidelity,
between them.
• The claim that AID is immoral rests upon the
view that marriage is an absolute
generative, as well as sexual, monopoly;
and that parenthood is an essentially, if not
solely, physiological partnership
Joseph Fletcher

• In characteristic fashion, Fletcher finds love and law

incompatible and insists that rules are less than
Christian.
• And he asserts that "to transcend natural restrictions, to
seek ends by means devised through choice rather than
by physical determinism, is a human and spiritual
victory.
Paul Ramsey

• Ramsey examines the nature of the marriage bond and

argues that the marriage bond and procreation are
inseparable.
• He contends that AI divides the sexual unity between
husband and wife, and therefore violates the covenant of
marriage.
• Ramsey argues that the very nature of sexual intercourse
combines a unitive (or unifying) and a procreative
function.
• Ramsey rejects AID because the personal and the
physical cannot be separated without dividing what God
has put together in the very nature of sexual intercourse.

• AID is therefore contrary to God's intention that children

should be the fruit of the loving gift of husband and wife
to one another.
Helmut Thielicke

• argues against AID

• He states that "the problem is presented by the fact that
here a third person enters into the exclusive
psychophysical relationship of marriage, even though it is
only his sperm that 'represents' him
• The introduction of donor semen therefore violates the
mysterium of marital fellowship, the psychophysical
unity of husband and wife
Pope Pius XII

• Artificial insemination in marriage with the use of an

active element from a third person is equally immoral
• Only the marriage partners have mutual rights over their
bodies for the procreation of a new life, and these are
exclusive, nontransferable, and inalienable rights. So it
must be, out of consideration for the child.
ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION
IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION
• The term “In Vitro” comes from the Latin root
means “within the glass”
• The Main Principle -IVF is a method of assisted
reproduction, in which a man's sperm and the
woman's egg are combined in a laboratory dish,
where fertilization occurs. -
HISTORY

• Louise Brown was the first IVF baby in the world.

She was born in July of 1978 in England Louise
was 28 (in 2006) when she had her own baby
(without IVF)Hundreds of thousands of children
are now born every year as a result of IVF
ETHICS IN IVF

• Issue #1
• The possible damage done to the Pre-embryo
Embryo's that are not transferred to the women's
uterus, will be either destroyed or used for
research purposes
• The embryo could be considered living
• Issue #2The possible damage done to the infertile
couple or the expected offspring by the
physician.

The percentage of success when performing IVF,

depends on the number of embryos transferred to
the uterus. Therefore, the more transfers that are
done, the greater the chance that the woman has
of becoming pregnant.This creates many risks for
both the mother and the embryo
• Issue #3The possible damage done to the
offspring by the couple using IVF
• Multiple pregnancies can also affect the baby
negatively
ETHICS

• in vitro fertilization allows for pregnancy to take

place after menopause, when the womb is still
very much capable of harbouring a fetus.
• This process of fertilization also permits same-sex
couples, unmarried parents, and single parents,
to harbour children
• The catholic church objects the entire embryo-planting
process. They claim a child is the product of a married
man and woman and should be the conceived under no
other circumstances, and that artificial insemination
removes the idea of a child being born after a married
couple completely give themselves to each other and
involve themselves in the closest intimacy.
SOCIAL AND MORAL IMPLICATIONS

• After the birth of the baby, society may not consider it to

be a true wonder of life due to its artificial insemination
rather than one being born naturally.
• Several moral oppositions to this process as some argue
that an embryo should be conceived naturally, rather
than artificially.
 SURROGATE
MOTHERHOOD
• surrogate motherhood, practice in which a
woman (the surrogate mother) bears a child
for a couple unable to produce children in
the usual way, usually because the wife is
infertile or otherwise unable to undergo
pregnancy.