Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Since the first “test tube baby” was born over 40 years ago, in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have advanced in extraordinary ways, producing millions of babies. About 20% of Americans use infertility services, and that number is growing. ARTs enable gay and lesbian couples, single parents, and now others to have offspring. Prospective parents can also use preimplantation genetic diagnosis to avoid passing on certain mutations to their children and to avoid abortions of fetuses with these mutations. Other future parents routinely choose the sex of their child and whether to give birth to twins. In the United States, these procedures are largely unregulated, and a large commercial market has rapidly grown, using “egg donors,” buying and selling human eggs and sperm, and using gestational surrogates. Potential parents; policymakers; doctors, including reproductive endocrinologists; and others thus face critical complex questions about the use—or possible misuse—of ARTs. This book examines ethical, social, and policy questions about these crucial technologies. Based on in-depth interviews, Robert Klitzman explores how doctors and patients struggle with quandaries of whether, when, and how to use ARTs. He articulates the full range of these crucial issues, from economic pressures to moral and social challenges of making decisions that will profoundly shape these offspring. The book explores, too, broader social and moral questions regarding gene editing, CRISPR, and eugenics. Klitzman argues for closer regulation of these technologies, which are altering future generations and the human species as a whole.Less

This volume brings together original essays exploring the intersections of clinical practice, policy, and bioethics in women’s healthcare. Including but moving beyond the familiar theme of reproduction, it aims to both broaden areas of scholarship in feminist bioethics and to respond to ethical challenges that many women experience in accessing healthcare. Some of the contributions overlap with concerns that feminist scholars have voiced in the past, such as the medicalization of women’s bodies, but address new procedures (e.g., female cosmetic genital surgery). Other chapters expand into new fields that are underexplored in the bioethics literature, such as ethical issues concerning the care of Indigenous women, uninsured refugees and immigrants, women engaged in sex work, and those with HIV and perinatal mental health disorders. The richness of the collection lies in the multitude of disciplines represented. Contributors range from those who are in active clinical practice—medicine, nursing, and ethics—to philosophers contemplating new conceptual issues. Topical and contemporary, this book provides a valuable resource for physicians, nurses, clinical ethicists, and researchers working in the areas of women’s health and applied ethics.Less

The Oxford Textbook of Obstetrics and Gynaecology is an up-to-date, objective, and readable text that covers the full speciality of obstetrics and gynaecology. This comprehensive and rigorously referenced textbook will be a vital resource in print and online for all practising clinicians. Larger sections on the basics in obstetrics and gynaecology, fetomaternal medicine, management of labour, gynaecological problems, and gynaecological oncology are complemented by specialist sections on areas such as neonatal care and neonatal problems, reproductive medicine, and urogynaecology and pelvic floor disorders, to name a few. The evidence-based presentation of current diagnostic and therapeutic methods is complemented in the text by numerous treatment algorithms, giving the reader the knowledge and tools needed for effective clinical practice.Less