Identifying Moral Perplexity in Reproductive Medicine. A Discourse Ethics Rationale

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Abstract
This article surveys relevant moral and ethical implications of reproductive medicine, excluding any aspects of contraception. To maintain the methodological priority of a moral perspective, it focuses on general moral theory and ethics before looking at the impact of ethics on the different techniques applied in reproductive medicine. The article suggests that discourse ethics should be centre-stage among the moral perspectives, since it has a unique capacity to synthesize, gauge and emulate other moral perspectives without necessarily replacing them. Questions of marital fidelity, parental identity, sexual relations, reshaping of family ties, preimplantation diagnosis, discarding of human life, and the quality of lives that are generally acknowledged as worth living are morally significant topics. As well as providing a description of the techniques used in reproductive medicine, the article presents a rationale for charting potentials for moral problems. This renders it possible to elucidate the moral costs of each of the options offered by reproductive medicine in light of whatever moral view one identifies with.

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