| Summary: | Is there a such thing as a universal right to have children? Should medical assistance to have children be available to everyone? Are all methods of assisted reproduction legitimate?<br> <br> The development of new reproductive technologies has spawned heated debate and deep controversy about how fertility treatments should be used clinically and by whom they should be controlled.<br> <br> Many individuals and groups claim access to assisted reproduction as an essential right--not only clinically infertile heterosexual couples, but also single women, gay couples, post-menopausal women, and career-oriented couples who wish to delay having children. Others argue that the simple desire to have children cannot be the sole criteria to determine whether assisted reproduction should be a human right. Furthermore, some object to providing fertility treatment on the basis of age, sexual orientation, or other lifestyle features.<br> <br> Mary Warnock steers a clear path through the web of complex issues underlying these divergent views. She analyzes what it means to claim something as a "right," examines the ethical problems faced by particular types of assisted reproduction, including artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, and surrogacy, and argues that in the future human cloning may well become a viable and acceptable form of treatment for some types of infertility.
|
|---|
