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Ethical Issues Related to Assisted Reproduction

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ETHICAL ISSUES RELATED TO REPRODUCTION
Oghenebrume Pela
Grand Canyon University: HLT 305
11/22/2014

Assisted reproductive technology otherwise known as fertility treatment uses various methods to achieve pregnancy. According to the CDC, the use of these methods has doubled in the last ten years. There has also been an increase in the number of successes based on the most recently collected data as at 2012. The current percentage of people born through ART (assisted reproductive technology) living in the United States is at 1% which, quite frankly, is a lot of people (Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), 2014).
In the case of surrogate parenting, an agreement is reached typically between an infertile couple and a woman who is to carry a baby for this couple. There are two main types which are gestational surrogacy and traditional surrogacy. In gestational surrogacy, conception takes place by means of IVF (in vitro fertilization) which would mean that the surrogate mother will have no genetic relationship with the resultant child. In traditional surrogacy, conception will take place either naturally or artificially which would mean that there will be a genetic relationship between the surrogate mother and the pregnancy.
Sperm and egg donation as the name implies is a practice in which sperm and eggs or embryos have been donated by a third party to enable the infertile individual or couple to conceive. The donors are usually screened before they can donate and are usually compensated for the donation.
All these are various types of fertility treatment and have become more commonly used around the world, but they still raise some ethical concerns which will be discussed further along.
Ethical Dilemmas surrounding Surrogate Parenting
A lot of ethical concerns have arisen and I think that these questions will always be asked. For the sake of this paper,

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