ABSTRACT
The social impact on decisions concerning fertility therapies is usually ignored and emphasis is given only to personal counselling between doctors and patients to achieve a certain degree of autonomy. There is a need to discuss the position that the social construction of ideals about family and motherhood, combined with problems of equal respect for both sexes are the main factors to be treated by alternative, non-in vitro fertilisation (IVF) therapies. The use of reproductive technologies – IVF and their alternatives – is commonly said to be a territory held by individuals; it is said to be a question of individual choice. This is the line of argumentation of most gynecologists, geneticists and also ethicists. For instance, the ethics committee of the American Fertility Society works on basis of this assumption in the ‘Ethical Considerations of Assisted Reproductive Technologies’.
