Ethical issues surrounding assisted reproduction explored by PhD student

Real case studies cited in book to illustrate the concerns we face - News

Thursday 13 December 2007
By Naomi Weston

The ethical issues surrounding assisted reproduction and IVF are explored in a new book co written by an Imperial College London PhD student.

'From IVF to Immortality: Controversy in the Era of Reproductive Technology', co-written by Anna Smajdor, from the Faculty of Medicine, outlines the history of artificial insemination and looks ahead to future issues of reproductive cloning.

Will cloning be made legal in the UK, why is sex selection so controversial, will scientists ever make an artificial womb? These are the burning issues covered in the book.

Each chapter includes a real life case study to illustrate the issues raised, for example the case of Diane Blood, who used her dead husband’s sperm to have two children; Louise Brown, born in 1978, the product of the first successful fertilisation of an egg outside the body. This case sparked the ‘test-tube babies’ debate which is still ongoing.

The book also examines moral, philosophical and legal concerns including the changing technologies surrounding surrogacy, retrieval of sperm from dead or dying patients, single or same sex parents and insemination of post-menopausal women.

In addition, the regulation of these technologies is covered, in particular the role of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

The authors believe this book is particularly relevant since these issues are currently being discussed in Parliament as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act is being redrafted.

Anna Smajdor said: "This is such a morally and legally complex area that you can never hope to find definitive answers. And because technology evolves so quickly, there's always something even more perplexing on the horizon. We wanted to write something that would demonstrate just how challenging, interesting and important these issues are, and let readers draw their own conclusions."

Anna Smajdor is finishing her PhD in the Division of Investigative Science looking at the ethical implicationa of artificial gametes and is an honorary research associate in Bioethics at Imperial. She also completed her MSc in medical ethics at the College.

Her co-author Ruth Deech is former chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and is a crossbench member of the House of Lords.