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Assisted Reproduction in Developing Countries: The Debate at a Turning Point

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Reprogen-ethics and the future of gender

Part of the book series: International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine ((LIME,volume 43))

A recent report in the journal Nature described the story of a woman named Betty Chishava from Harare, Zimbabwe who was thrown out of her family home because she failed to conceive and refused to sleep with her brother in-law to increase her chances of getting pregnant [1]. She did not have access to treatment and in her culture she could not negotiate her status in her family and society outside motherhood. This is not a rare story rather the reality for many infertile women in developing countries. Infertility is not usually considered a developing world problem. Provision of infertility services and especially assisted reproduction are not on the resource allocation agenda. In the era of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with malaria, tuberculosis and many other preventable or treatable diseases still claiming millions of lives, infertility can hardly make a case.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Effy Vayena

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  1. Effy Vayena
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Correspondence to Effy Vayena .

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  1. Yezreel Valley College, D.N. Emek Yezreel 19300, Israel

    Frida Simonstein

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Vayena, E. (2009). Assisted Reproduction in Developing Countries: The Debate at a Turning Point. In: Simonstein, F. (eds) Reprogen-ethics and the future of gender. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2475-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2475-6_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2474-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2475-6

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