Assisted Reproduction Technologies

A critical reading of Murata Sayaka's Shōmetsu sekai 消滅世界 (2015) Anna Specchio
Full paper available at:
https://www.ojs.unito.it/index.php/kervan/article/view/5060

Murata Sayaka is a controversial story writer who questions Japanese current values of love, sex, and the nuclear family, pivoting on issues like gender and power. In her novel Shōmetsu sekai (Dwindling World, 2015), she depicts a parallel Japan where sex has disappeared, and modern birth control technology is used by the population. Thus, the novel has been labelled as dystopic, and Murata's readers think of her literary world as disturbing. In the Shōmetsu sekai scenario, gender-based social differences disappear for the community wellbeing, and the new biotechnology is used to improve social conditions. Therefore, should it be considered simply a dystopian work of fiction? By approaching the text from the perspective of gender, feminist and posthuman studies, and contextualizing it within Japanese society and Murata Sayaka's literary framework, I argue that it is possible to consider Shōmetsu sekai as an example of utopic feminist (or LGBTQ+) work of fiction and that the neutralisation of sex as we know it today should be intended as a means of social improvement.

This paper will draw on Catholic resources to examine the impact of population and consumption vis-à-vis reproduction in the developed world as it relates to theological/ moral obligations to the earth.  By examining both natural and artificial means of procreation, an assessment of “green” reproduction can be made.

I will explore contraception as an option for limiting natural procreation, and the avoidance of assisted reproductive technologies [ARTs] as a way of preventive artificial reproduction. However, both family size and carbon footprint must be scrutinized for ecologically sound consumer practices in accordance with biblical principles to ensure the global magnitude of the ecological crisis is examined; therefore the role of consumption that stems from procreation will also be discussed.

The paper will conclude by envisioning alternative parenting options as they relate to ecological practices, and I will assert that  on the continuum of ecologically oriented reproductive choices, non-biological parenting and thereby a reduction in procreation and consumerist practices is the most ethical and ecological solution to the environmental crisis that surely escalates with each birth. Adoption, foster parenting, and spiritual parenting will be presented as “green” alternatives to biological children.

Paper posted with permission of Brill.

This article will examine current United States health insurance policies for providing fertility services and Assisted Reproductive Technologies [ARTs], and analyze the open-ended policies of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This state in particular will be discussed in depth, as there are virtually no limits on infertility provision or coverage. However, tightening up Massachusetts’s health insurance policies by putting parameters on provision and coverage of ARTs will allow the infertile to continue to access paid-for treatment while ensuring that the goal of health insurance coverage- which I understand to be the provision of paid coverage to address medical conditions- is maintained.

Through the use of assisted reproductive technologies multiple children are born, adding to worldwide carbon emissions. Evaluating the ethics of offering reproductive services against its overall harm to the environment makes unregulated ARTs unjustified, yet the ART business can move towards sustainability as a part of the larger environmental movement. In the medical industry this can be accomplished through the established discipline of environmental bioethics and the nascent field of green bioethics.  When green bioethics is integrated into the assisted reproductive technology industry, climate change can be mitigated and the conversation about consumption can become a public discourse.

Although the impact of naturally made children on the environment is undeniable, I will focus on the assisted reproductive technologies industry as an anthropogenic source of carbon emissions which lead to climate change. The ART industry is an often-overlooked source of environmental degradation and decidedly different from natural reproduction as fertility centers provide a service for a fee and therefore can be subject to economic, policy and bioethical scrutiny.

In this article I will provide a brief background on the current state of human-driven climate change before suggesting two conservationist strategies that can be employed in the ART business. First, endorsing a carbon capping program that limits the carbon emissions of ART businesses will be proposed. Second, I will recommend that policymakers eliminate funded ARTs for those who are not biologically infertile. I will conclude the article by urging policymakers and all those concerned with climate change to consider the effects of the reproductive technologies industry in light of climate change and move towards sustainability.

In America it is forbidden to sell one’s organs or tissues for profit. Public policy gives no provision for financial compensation for a life-saving service like organ donation, but has no legal or moral sanctions against monetary recompense for offering one's bodily services for a non-essential treatment. In contrast, obtaining surrogate mothers, and egg donors for Assisted Reproductive Technologies [A.R.T.s] are provided for under U.S. law can be quite lucrative, marking a sharp distinction between the illegal and legal buying and selling of the body. This paper will explore the financial aspects of human collateral- selling the body for income- and consider laws that forbid financial compensation for life-saving procedures in juxtaposition to the ethical ramifications of a legal system that permits payment for non-lifesaving treatments.

After the typical theological and bioethical questions about in vitro fertilization (IVF) are vetted, there remains a three-dimensional understanding of responsibility that is not typically considered in Christian bioethics. This paper will explore responsibility to the spouses’ loving union, their bodies, and society in order to ascertain the morality of IVF. In a marriage partnership, the spouses’ primary responsibility is to each other. Although in matrimony physical union is essential to marriage, children are not. The second dimension of responsibility focuses on the body—“the temple of God”—and on our responsibility to care for it. This concerns the woman, her husband, and even the newborn. Finally, the third understanding of responsibility leads us to address social concerns, with an emphasis on social dynamics, especially the cost of IVF procedures and how they siphon medical resources away from more urgent human needs in health care and within society.