Ethics in the infertility clinic: a qualitative study

Frith, Lucy ORCID: 0000-0002-8506-0699 Ethics in the infertility clinic: a qualitative study. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

This thesis is a qualitative study of infertility clinicians in the UK, exploring how they manage ethical issues: a study that uses empirical methods to explore ethical questions. I use a broadly Aristotelian conception of the relationship between theory and practice to develop a methodology for considering practical ethical issues. I then show how this approach, when allied with contemporary qualitative methodologies, can provide particularly valuable insights and produce practical recommendations. An important element of my approach is that a close attention to actual practice can also result in refining and developing our ethical theories and principles – practice informs theory just as theory can inform practice. This account of the ethical decision-making processes of infertility clinicians can not only highlight new ethical problems, but also develop more nuanced moral norms and ethical theories to deal with the conflicts and issues that arise in the clinical setting. Infertility treatment is a speciality that has attracted much attention from the public and bioethicists. The focus has been predominately on the dramatic aspects such as the status of the embryo or underlying issues such as the ethical boundaries of procreative liberty. Relatively little, however, is known about the everyday moral workings of infertility clinics: how clinicians approach ethical issues on a daily basis; what for them are troubling issues; and how they resolve ethical conflict. This study aims to gain insight into the way clinicians actually make ethical decisions. Moving on from this, it critically evaluates such processes and offers both an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the clinicians’ ethical decision-making and considers how this form of decision-making can be extended and supported in practice. The aims of this thesis are to contribute to the debate on both how ethical decision-making in the infertility clinic can be improved and, more generally, how bioethics can make a useful contribute to practical problems.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy)
Additional Information:	Please note that in this electronic version page numbers of the tables and figures are different from those in the Contents. Some Appendices not included as they are photocopies of original documents (Appendix 2 and some of Appendix 6). Date: 2008-12 (completed)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Infertility treatment, ethics, qualitative research
Subjects:	?? R1 ?? ?? BJ ??
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Population Health
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	18 Feb 2011 11:52
Last Modified:	16 Dec 2022 04:33
DOI:	10.17638/00001191
Supervisors:	Jacoby, Ann Gabbay, Mark ORCID: 0000-0002-0126-8485 Hailwood, Simon
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/1191