AN ETHICAL AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK: TOWARD AN EVALUATION OF THE REPRODUCTION-CONTROLLING AND REPRODUCTION-AIDING TECHNOLOGIES
In the introduction, we mentioned the paradoxical relationship between fertile people who may use a reproduction-controlling technology to avoid having children and infertile people who may use even a physically taxing and stress-inducing reproduction-aiding technology because they want children very much. Fertile people choose not to procreate for diverse and complex reasons: Some are too unhealthy; others are too immature; still others are too poor. Then there are those people who are healthy, mature, and financially secure, but who simply do not want to parent children. Their work is all-consuming, or their intergenerational skills are limited, or their life-style is too free-form. Finally, there are those people who are ideologically opposed to childbearing. They are concerned about overpopulation, or they are worried about bringing a child into a self-destructive world.
Significantly, the healthier and the wealthier of these fertile people will also tend to have the most reproductive options. Just because society recognizes a woman's right to have an abortion, for example, does not mean that it feels obligated to fund one for her. Recently, Time magazine published an article on abortion's "hardest cases." Among these cases was that of a seventh-grader named Pamela (a pseudonym) who was raped by her stepfather. When her mother discovered what had happened, she took Pamela to a Planned Parenthood clinic to arrange for an abortion. Told that Medicaid would not pay the $400 cost of an abortion, Pamela's mother, who works two jobs but clears less than $600 a month, exclaimed that she simply did not have $400. Planned Parenthood officials subsequently softened and agreed to perform the abortion for $100 because it seemed too cruel to force a 12-year-old girl to carry her stepfather's child to term. Under similar circumstances, a rich preadolescent would have fared much better. Her mother would have been able to pay $400 or even more to secure the services of a private physician for her.
Equally complex is the procreative situation of many infertile people. A variety of critics wonder whether infertile couples who want children act wisely when they assume all of the hardships and expenditures that accompany the use of some of the reproduction-aiding technologies. Pro-choice feminists worry that infertility is a problem largely because society continually signals to women that unless they have children, their lives will prove to be ultimately meaningless. Pro-life conservatives also believe that infertility is a problem, but they think there is a simple solution for it. They suggest that fertile girls and women should simply carry their unwanted fetuses to term so that infertile couples can adopt them. But to ask a girl such as Pamela to carry her pregnancy to term so an infertile couple can adopt her child is to ask her to bear an extraordinarily heavy psychological as well as physical burden. Similarly, to ask an infertile couple to forego the possibility of begetting a child genetically related to them in favor of adopting Pamela's infant is to ask them to make a personal sacrifice that relatively few fertile couples would choose to make. Clearly, it is unrealistic to believe that either Pamela or the infertile couple who are pressured to adopt her infant would be well-served by this accommodation.
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Womens Health
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ANTE-NATAL TESTS
Cervical smear Most cervical cancer can be prevented, which is why the majority of women will have a cervical smear test at the first ante-natal visit. It entails the insertion of a speculum into the vagina and an almost painless scraping of the surface of the cervix for a sample of cells which will be examined under a microscope in the laboratory. This test, looking for pre-cancerous cells, is widely advocated for all women pregnant or not, particularly if they're over thirty-five , have had more than one (male) sexual partner and if they have three or more children. There is no special reason for testing pregnant women and it is probably not an essential test, but if you are undergoing a vaginal examination anyway, there is virtue in having it done.
Chest x-ray If you have a history of chest illness you may be offered a chest x-ray to check for TB. Avoid it if you possibly can. X-rays are known to damage the foetus, particularly in the early months of pregnancy. A woman's body should be heavily screened during a chest x-ray to prevent the x-rays affecting the foetus, but despite the most careful precautions there is some evidence that some rays may still get through to the foetus.
Ultrasound A few hospital clinics like to perform an ultrasonic scan at this stage in order to confirm dates. Ultrasound - which uses high-frequency sound waves to form on a TV screen a picture of a foetus inside the womb - is now widely used in ante-natal care and is assumed to be safe even though this has never been verified. Since, theoretically at least, any possible effects of ultrasound are more likely to affect the foetus when it is tiny, it is perhaps particularly important that it should not be used unnecessarily at this stage. Women are anyway commonly well aware of the age of their pregnancy. In one survey, sociologist Ann Oakley found that over ninety per cent knew their dates exactly, and the rest knew to within a week.
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Women's Health
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