The Beginning of Human Life / Edition 1

by Frauke Beller, R. Weir

Overview

Progress in biomedical science has called for an international discussion of the medical, ethical, and legal problems that confront physicians, medical researchers, infertile couples, pregnant women, and parents of premature or disabled infants. In addition, the unprecedented technological developments in obstetrical, perinatal, and neonatal medicine in recent years have indicated a need for an international forum for interdisciplinary dialogue regarding the definition of early human life, the neurological development of early human life, the value of early human life, the obligations for its protection and prolongation, and the limits to these obligations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780792321651
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	11/30/1993
Edition description:	1993
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.04(d)

Table of Contents

I. General Perspectives.- Medical Aspects of the Beginning of Individual Lives.- The Beginning of Full Moral Standing.- Legal Aspects of the Beginning of Human Life.- Development of the Human Brain: The Emergence of the Neural Substrate for Pain Perception and Conscious Experience.- The Moral Significance of Brain-Life Criteria.- II. Assisted Reproductive Technology.- Assisted Reproductive Technologies of the 1980s and 1990s: The State of the Art and a Look at the Future.- Human Reproductive Technology: Why All the Moral Fuss?.- Gestational Surrogacy and the Health Care Provider.- III. Contraception and Abortion.- The Beginning of Human Life: Contraceptive Implications.- Abortion: A Public Health Perspective.- Abortion and Contraception: The Moral Significance of Fertilization.- Contraception and Abortion: Legal Distinctions and Dynamics.- IV. Fetal Research and Fetal Tissue.- The Use of Human Fetal Tissue for Research and Therapy.- Restriction and Suppression of Fetal and Pre-Embryo Research, 1974–1990.- Two Problems in Embryo Research.- Fetal Tissue Transplantation and Women.- Fetal Tissue Transplantation: An Institutional Review Board Perspective.- V. Medical, Ethical, and Legal Aspects of Maternal/Fetal Relationships.- Primary Care Fetal Medicine.- Court-Ordered Cesarean Delivery.- Pregnant Drug Addicts.- Women’s Rights versus the Protection of Fetuses.- The Mother and Fetus Union: What God Has Put Together, Let No Law Put Asunder?.- Coercion for Fetal Therapy?.- VI. Rights and Obligations Related to the Beginning of Individual Human Lives.- When Care Cannot Cure: Medical Problems in Seriously Ill Babies.- Transplantation and the Anencephalic Newborn.- Life-and-Death Decisions in the Midst of Uncertainty.- When is Medical Treatment Futile?.- Treatment Decisionsfor Premature and Disabled Newborns: Hard Cases Make Bad Law.