Is Lower Quality Clinical Care Ethically Justifiable for Patients Residing in Areas with Infrastructure Deficits?

AMA J Ethics. 2018 Mar 1;20(1):228-237. doi: 10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.ecas1-1803.

Abstract

Reproductive health services, including infertility care, are important in countries with infrastructure deficits, such as Lebanon, which now hosts more than one million Syrian refugees. Islamic prohibitions on child adoption and third-party reproductive assistance (donor eggs, sperm, embryos, and surrogacy) mean that most Muslim couples must turn to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to overcome their childlessness. Attempts to bring low-cost IVF-ICSI to underserved populations might help infertile couples where no other services are available. However, a low-cost IVF-ICSI protocol for male infertility remains technically challenging and thus may result in two standards of clinical care. Nonetheless, low-cost IVF-ICSI represents a form of reproductive justice in settings with infrastructure deficits and is clearly better than no treatment at all.

MeSH terms

  • Costs and Cost Analysis*
  • Developing Countries*
  • Ethics, Clinical*
  • Family Planning Services
  • Fertilization in Vitro
  • Health Resources
  • Health Services Accessibility
  • Humans
  • Infertility, Male / ethnology
  • Infertility, Male / therapy*
  • Islam
  • Lebanon
  • Male
  • Quality of Health Care*
  • Refugees
  • Religion and Medicine
  • Reproductive Health Services* / economics
  • Reproductive Health Services* / ethics
  • Reproductive Health Services* / standards
  • Sperm Injections, Intracytoplasmic* / economics
  • Sperm Injections, Intracytoplasmic* / ethics
  • Syria
  • Vulnerable Populations