The Oxford Handbook of Reproductive Ethics

Reproductive ethics poses many of the most controversial issues of our time. Questions about the roles, rights, and responsibilities of parents force us to think about individual autonomy, the nature of the family, and relationships between private institutions and the state. And reproduction is not only about procreators but raises deeply divisive issues about gametes, embryos, fetal issue, and the moral status of the fetus or newborn child. This volume boldly addresses these and other issues, grounding their treatment in careful and reasoned philosophical analysis. To take just a few of the questions in the volume: Is reproductive care a human right? Should infertility treatment be provided from socially shared resources? Is abortion ethically permissible and, if so, in what circumstances? Is surrogate gestation ethically permissible? Do procreators have duties to support their children, even if they have tried to prevent conception? Are there asymmetries between the responsibilities of males and females and should male contraception be developed as a matter of social justice? Are there characteristics that disqualify people as parents and, if so, what are these characteristics? Do potential procreators have a duty to try to conceive under favorable circumstances, or refrain from conceiving if they cannot? Do health care providers have rights of conscience to decline to provide certain types of care, even if it is legally permissible? This volume brings together scholars and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines-bioethics, ethics, law, political science, and medicine-to address these and other deeply contentious questions. The essays in the volume are all new, written by both very well-known and emerging scholars in their fields. They represent liberal, feminist, conservative, and radical theoretical perspectives and are designed to challenge thinking in the field for years to come.