An Overview of the Current ART, the Dilemmas They Surface, and the Role of DLPBA in the Positive Law

The last few decades have witnessed dramatic changes affecting the institutions of family and parenthood. If, in the past, the classic family was defined sociologically as a pair of heterosexual parents living together under one roof along with their children, different sociological changes have led to a rapid and extreme transformation in the definitions of family, marital relations, parenthood, and the relationship between parents and children. Dr Yehezkel Margalit explores whether and to what extent there is room, legally and ethically, for the use of modern contractual devices and doctrines to privately regulate the establishment of legal parentage. This book offers intentional parenthood as the most appropriate and flexible normative doctrine for resolving the dilemmas which have surfaced in the field of determining legal parentage. By using the certainty of contract law, determining the legal status of parenthood will be seen as the best method to sort out ambiguities and assure both parental and children rights.

Determining Legal Parentage: Between Family Law and Contract Law

The combination of genuine ethical concerns and fear of learning to use germ-line therapy for human disease must now be confronted. Until now, no established techniques were available to perform this treatment on a human. Through an integration of several fields of science and medicine, we have developed a nine step protocol at the germ-line level for the curative treatment of a genetic disease. Our purpose in this paper is to provide the first method to apply germ-line therapy to treat those not yet born, who are destined to have a life threatening, or a severely debilitating genetic disease. We hope this proposal will initiate the process of a thorough analysis from both the scientific and ethical communities. As such, this proposal can be useful for official groups studying the advantages and disadvantages of germ-line therapy.

Germ-Line Therapy to Cure Mitochondrial Disease: Protocol and Ethics Of

Since 2000, 11 human uterine transplantation procedures (UTx) have been performed across Europe and Asia. Five of these have, to date, resulted in pregnancy and four live births have now been recorded. The most significant obstacles to the availability of UTx are presently scientific and technical, relating to the safety and efficacy of the procedure itself. However, if and when such obstacles are overcome, the most likely barriers to its availability will be social and financial in nature, relating in particular to the ability and willingness of patients, insurers or the state to pay. Thus, publicly funded healthcare systems such as the UK's National Health Service (NHS) will eventually have to decide whether UTx should be funded. With this in mind, we seek to provide an answer to the question of whether there exist any compelling reasons for the state not to fund UTx. The paper proceeds as follows. It assumes, at least for the sake of argument, that UTx will become sufficiently safe and cost-effective to be a candidate for funding and then asks, given that, what objections to funding there might be. Three main arguments are considered and ultimately rejected as providing insufficient reason to withhold funding for UTx. The first two are broad in their scope and offer an opportunity to reflect on wider issues about funding for infertility treatment in general. The third is narrower in scope and could, in certain forms, apply to UTx but not other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). The first argument suggests that UTx should not be publicly funded because doing so would be inconsistent with governments' obligations to prevent climate change and environmental pollution. The second claims that UTx does not treat a disorder and is not medically necessary. Finally, the third asserts that funding for UTx should be denied because of the availability of alternatives such as adoption and surrogacy.

https://jme.bmj.com/content/medethics/42/9/559.full.pdf

Should uterus transplants be publicly funded

Eugenics is often referred to in debates on the ethics of reproductive technologies and practices, in relation to the creation of moral boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable technologies, and acceptable and unacceptable uses of these technologies. Historians have argued that twentieth century eugenics cannot be reduced to a uniform set of practices, and that no simple lessons can be drawn from this complex history. Some authors stress the similarities between past eugenics and present reproductive technologies and practices (what I define throughout the paper as ‘the continuity view’) in order to condemn the latter. Others focus on the differences between past and present practices (what I define throughout the paper as ‘the discontinuity view’) in order to defend contemporary reproductive technologies. In this paper, I explore the meanings of the word ‘eugenics’ and the relationship between its past and present uses in terms of contemporary debates on reproductive technologies and practices. I argue that moral disagreement about present technologies originate in divergent views of condemnable and justifiable features of the past.

/pdf/looking-into-the-shadow-the-eugenics-argument-in-debates-on-3ocashqan1.pdf

Looking into the shadow: the eugenics argument in debates on reproductive technologies and practices.

Mitochondrial/nuclear transfer (M/NT) to avoid the transmission of serious mitochondrial disease raises complex and challenging ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI). In February 2015, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to legalize M/NT, making the heated debate surrounding this technology even more relevant. This critical interpretive review identified 95 relevant papers discussing the ELSI of M/NT, including original research articles, government-commissioned reports, editorials, letters to editors and research news. The review presents and synthesizes the arguments present in the literature in relation to the most commonly raised themes: terminology; identity, relationships and parenthood; potential harm; reproductive autonomy; available alternatives; consent; impact on specific interest groups; resources; “slippery slope”; creation, use and destruction of human embryos; and beneficence. The review concludes by identifying those ELSI that are specific to M/NT and by calling for follow-up longitudinal clinical and psychosocial research in order to equip future ELSI debate with empirical evidence.

/pdf/mitochondrial-nuclear-transfer-a-literature-review-of-the-2cw7l6ubfi.pdf

Mitochondrial/Nuclear Transfer: A Literature Review of the Ethical, Legal and Social Issues

Language, terminology, and metaphors play a role in framing public debate, policy, and research directions. O'Keefe and colleagues (2015) explore the impact of language in the case of gene editing ...

The "Three-Parent Baby": A Case Study of How Language Frames the Ethical Debate Regarding an Emerging Technology.

Reproductive technology is one of the greatest medical success stories of our time Since the 
advent of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1978, an estimated 5 million babies have been born 
worldwide as an outcome of this revolutionary technology (Chambers et al  2014 ), alleviating the burden of infertility and bringing joy to millions of parents and families The broad 
social acceptability of reproductive technology has been marked by the 2010 Noble prize in 
medicine being awarded to Dr Robert Edwards (Nobel prize 2010 ), developer of IVF and the 
metaphorical ‘father’ of Louise Brown, the world’s fi rst IVF baby IVF and some of its associated techniques such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and preimplantation genetic 
diagnosis (PGD), have now become commonplace In the United States, over 1 per cent of all 
births are of babies conceived through reproductive technology (Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention et al  2010 ) This number is even higher in most European countries, where it 
is estimated that as many as 6 per cent of births are achieved using assisted reproductive technologies (Nyboe Andersen and Erb 2006 ) In addition, prenatal screening and testing have now 
become an integral part of prenatal care in all developed countries (Rapp 2000 )

Emerging legal and ethical issues in reproductive technologies

Cette etude de cas met en relief certaines situations de conflits d’interets liees aux recherches epidemiologiques du professeur John Corbett McDonald quant aux effets de l’amiante chrysotile sur la sante humaine.

/pdf/amiante-et-conflits-d-interets-l-universite-mcgill-pointee-1oehkn4vi3.pdf

Raphaëlle Dupras-Leduc

Papers

Mitochondrial/Nuclear Transfer: A Literature Review of the Ethical, Legal and Social Issues

The "Three-Parent Baby": A Case Study of How Language Frames the Ethical Debate Regarding an Emerging Technology.

Emerging legal and ethical issues in reproductive technologies

Amiante et conflits d'intérêts : l'Université McGill pointée du doigt