ABSTRACT
The ethics of conception is not something the people necessarily think about. Many people go through their daily lives with little thought of having children. Life is already full, busy, occupied by other matters such that when conception 'just happens' it is unexpected. On the one hand, the people only find out about pregnancy after they have already conceived a child, meaning the child as biologically existing is only recognized after it has already come into existence. In the image of a cavity, the people find the relational void of a parent who experiences a wanting lack. When a parent imagines an absent child, he or she may experience the child in its "irreality". As a starting point for exploring the ethics of neonatal-perinatal medicine, the people realize that the ethics of conception may in part be founded in an ambiguous imagined reality.
