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AVAILABILITY REQUEST

Don't forget! Click on the book name for a direct email link to check the books availability!

Only DCSG members within Australia can borrow our books and please return books within 30 days!

Book listing: Ethical issues

The books available from our library under the "Ethical issues " category are listed below.

Members are invited to submit their own reviews of books, so if you have read and enjoyed one, please email your comments to dcsg@optushome.com.au.

Please note that only DCSG members based in Australia may borrow library items, to be returned within 30 days. To check availability of a book to borrow, click on the book name for the "request availability" direct email link.

The types of issues raised in these books include:
Cloning
Sex selection or predetermination
The legal and moral implications of reproductive technology
Surrogacy - the depersonalisation of birth mothers
The laws and politics surrounding the issue of frozen embryos
Rights, responsibilities and resistance
Setting the context for reproductive control
Genetic engineering
The ethical issues surrounding IVF and DI, and legal aspects of artificial insemination
Psychosocial impact of infertility on men
Ethical issues in existing and emerging techniques for improving human fertility
Ethical Issues
Advanced Topics in Bio ethics : Birth, Life and Death
by Boston University
USA, 2001
Advanced Topics in Bioethics

This report covers issues such as the legal, and moral rights to assisted reproduction,artificial insemination, surrogacy, fetal monitoring, sex pre selection and the social consequences of increasing infertility.


Artifical insemination by donor
by Phyllis Creighton
USA, 1977
Artifical insemination by donor

A study of ethics, medicine, and law in our technological society

From the back cover: "...explores a controversial medical techique in growing demand today, and the leg, medical and ethical questions raised for:

  • Parents wanting children
  • Doctors providing treatment
  • Lawyers giving counsel
  • Legislators protecting human rights.

A question of life
by Mary Warnock
UK, 1985
A question of life

The Warnock Report on Human Fertilisation and Embryology

From the back cover: “In 1982 the British government set up the Warnock Committee — a group of doctors, lawyers, theologians, social scientists and ordinary citizens — to consider the implications of surrogate motherhood, cloning, in vitro fertilisation and other methods of helping childless couples. Their report, published in Summer 1984, has provoked predictably strong reactions and is widely regarded as an early landmark in an international debate.”


Brave New Baby
by David Rorvik
USA, 1971
Brave New Baby

Promise and Peril of Biological Revolution

From the back cover: “[the author] explores the fascinating, sometimes frightening possibilities that emerge as man changes himself from creature to creator. In lucid, non-technical language, he describes the promises and the problems — medical, legal, and moral — of genetic engineering, asexual reproduction, test-tube babies, and even a mechanical body for a human brain.”


Brave New Worlds
by Bryan Appleyard
United Kingdom, 1999
Brave New Worlds

Genetics and the Human Experience

“[this book] is a primer for reclaiming the knowledge and power that is rightfully ours...[the author] explores the promise and danger of genetic manipulation. From here, he forges a link between a scientific juggernaut and its moral and ethical implications. Only by making this connection, the author insists, can nonscientists accept responsibility for grave decisions that have no historical precedent.”


Conception in the Test Tube
by Harry Kannegiesser
Australia, 1988
Conception in the Test Tube

The IVF Story: How Australia leads the world

From the inner leaf: “[this book] is designed for:

  • general readers who wish to know something about IVF
  • students of history and philosophy who want to understand how scientific knowledge is developed
  • anyone who is concerned about the moral and ethical issues arising from this area of research.”

Controversies in Health Law
Edited by Ian Freckelton and Kerry Petersen
Australia, 1999
Controversies in Health Law

From the back cover: “This book debates the core of Australian health law likely to confront health care and legal practitioners in the coming years.”

Covers issues such as legal regulation of clinical decision making; litigation issues including confidentiality, malpractice, consent to treatment and health dispute; Technology issues such as the challenge of genetics, regulation of assisted reproductive technology and why to legislate on assisted reproduction; and health law and ethics issues.


Designer Babies
by Roger Gosden
United Kingdom, 1999
Designer Babies

The Brave New Worl of Reproductive Technology

“No other scientific field generate more public anxiety and debate than assisted reproductive technology (ART)”

Looks at: The myth and the monster; The precious child; The pursuit of perfection; Playing God; Keep out the clones; sex selection; Other wombs; Never too late? and Reproductive liberties.


Ethics
by William K Frankena
USA, 1963
Ethics
This book aims to exhibit some of the main problems in the various fields of philosophy and covers morality, moral philosophy, egoistic and deontological theories, utilitarianism, justice and love, moral values and responsibilities, intrinsic value and the good life, meaning and justification.

Genetic maps and Human Imaginations
by Barbara Katz Rothman
USA, 1998
Genetic Maps and Human Imaginations

The limits of science in understanding who we are

From the front leaf: “[the author] provides an essential tour through what is happening on the genetics front and the earthshaking ramifications...this articulate, funny and extremely provocative argument against bad science is also a passionate defence of the fact that human beings are social beings who grow into who they are.”


Human Embryos
by C R Austin
UK, 1989
Human Embryos

Assisted Reproduction...experimentation ...The future - the debate on assisted reproduction

From the back cover: “How do embryos develop? Can we decide when the life of a person or individual begins? Why are some men and women infertile? How are test-tube babies made? Is this work immoral and should it be illegal? Is it possible to make human clones? Why is more research needed? Can genetic engineering end the birth of sick, deformed babies?”


In the Blood
by Steve Jones
UK, 1996
In the Blood

God, genes and destiny

From the back cover: “Genetics is at the heart of modern science and some say of history, philosophy and the law. Genes link the past with the present and contain within themselves the fate of many of those who carry them.”


Issues in Reproductive Technology
Edited by Helen Bequaert Holmes
USA, 1992
Issues in Reproductive Technology

From the back cover: “...vital questions are explored in this timely work, which incisively analyses a plethora of issues raised by advances in reproductive medicine, in five major sections: contraception, abortion, freezing of eggs and embryos, psychosocial issues of in vitro fertilization, and surrogate motherhood.

In each section, introductory essays by recognized authorities...are followed by perceptive articles by philosophers, physicians, biologists, sociologists, political scientists, and women's health activists.”


Law and Ethics of AID and Embryo Transfer
by Ciba Foundation Symposium 17
The Netherlands, 1973
Law and Ethics of AID and Embryo Transfer

From the inner leaf: “The members of this symposium examine the legal, social and psychological problems affecting children born of artificial insemination by donor or by embryo transfer. The legality of AID which is normally used only to cure infertility, and of embryo transfer, and the civil status of the children born by these means, need clarification, as do the moral and ethical issues. The discussions, of wide general interest, draw upon reproductive biology, genetics, obstetrics and gynaecology, sociology, theology, philosophy and law.”


Life in a test-tube
by Dr Daniel Ch. Overduin and Fr John I Fleming
Australia, 1986
Life in a test-tube

Medical and ethical issues facing society today

Chapter 2 looks at 'The Beginning of human life' covering conception, artificial insemination by husband and by donor, in vitro fertilisation and surrogate motherhood.

Chapter 5, 'The manipulation of human life' covers genetic engineering, cloning and research on human subjects.


Living Laboratories
by Robyn Rowland
United Kingdom, 1992
Living Laboratories

Women and Reproductive Technology

From the inner leaf: “[this] timely, provocative and sobering survey asks important questions about the growing gap between natural reproduction and scientific involvement in conception and procreation. She argues that scientific advances cannot be divorced from men and women's continuing battle for control of women's fertility, a battle which is also drawn round race and class lines. If children are becoming the products of the nexus between commerce, science and medicine, must women be the experimental raw material in the masculine desire to control the creation of life — patriarchy's living laboratories?”


Made in the Lab
by Senator John J Hogg - Labor Senator for QLD
Australia, 2004
Made in the Lab

Further issues surrounding Assisted Reproduction Technology, cloning and stem cell technology - volume 1

With a focus being placed on:

  • The legal rights/status of those conceived and/or born by Donor Insemination
  • The psychological and physiological implications for those conceived in this way
  • How legislators, community groups and government departments are addressing any emerging issues

Report on Study Tour to UK and EU, May 2004


Manufacturing Humans
by D Gareth Jones
United Kingdom, 1987
Manufacturing Humans

The challenge of the new reproductive technologies

From the back cover: “[this book] is written out of deep concern for the unborn now under our control. The author's high view of the person is applied to the mysteries of the commencement of life. His humane dialogue engages the reader in an honest, realistic, yet thoroughly biblical appraisal”.


Our Stolen Future
by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Myers
USA, 1996
Our stolen future

Are we threatening our fertility, intelligence and survival? — A scientific detective story

This book looks at the dangers of chemicals to our wildlife and environment and to humans — “Male sperm counts have dropped as much as 50% in recent decades, while women have suffered a dramatic rise in hormone-related cancers, endometriosis and other disorders”.


Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights
edited by Erik Parens and Adrienne Asch
USA, 2000
Prenatal testing and disability rights

Adrienne Asch is a member of DCSG and is the Henry L Luce Professor of Biology, Ethics and Human Reproduction at Wellesley College, Massachusetts.

Covers issues such as: Selective abortion, prenatal testing and technology and the genetic imaginary, amniocentesis.


Remaking Eden
by Lee M Silver
UK, 1998
Remaking Eden

Cloning, Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humankind?

Part two: Creating Life covers: Babies without sex, In vitro fertilisation and frozen embryos.

Part four: Mothers and Fathers: Variations on a them covers issues such as buying and selling sperm and eggs, shared genetic motherhood, contracting for a biological mother.


Reproductive Technology
by Dr Karen Dawson
Australia, 1994
Reproductive Technology

The Science, The Ethics, The Law and the Social Issues

Looks at: Fertility and infertility; Treating infertility using ART; Is ART ethical and regulating ART (legislation in Australia and worldwide).

Covers: gender selection, use of foetal ovaries and eggs, ectopic pregnancy, multiple births.


Test-tube conception
by Prof Carl Wood and Ann Westmoor
Australia, 1983
Test-tube conception

A guide for couples, doctors and the community to the revolutionary breakthrough in treating infertility including the ethical and social issues.

From the back cover: “This book is written for all thinking people - whether contemplating joining an IVF program, in a position to offer advice about the method, or interested in the ethical, legal or social consequences to society of using this method to bypass infertility.”


Test-Tube Women
by R.Arditti, R.Duelli, R.Klein and S.Minden
UK, 1984
Test-tube women

What Future for motherhood

From the back cover: “The technological takeover of motherhood. Genetic engineering, sperm banks, test tube fertilisation, sex selection, surrogate mothering, experimentation in the third world, increased technological intervention in childbirth — are we taking pregnancy and the birth process out of the dark ages or into a terrifying brave new world?”


The Baby Machine
by Jocelynee Scutt
Australia, 1988
The Baby Machine

Essays by 10 internationally prominent women

From the back cover: “Today it is a relatively usual event to read of a new born child conceived by artificial insemination, brought to life in a petri dish or carried to term by a surrogate mother. Talk abounds of genetic screening for detecting and correcting perceived flaws in fetuses and gene therapy. But are women better off?”


The Mother Machine
by Gena Corea
USA
The Mother Machine

Reproductive Technologies from artificial insemination to artificial wombs

From the back cover: “Exploding the myth of new hope for the infertile, The Mother Machine is a thorough, rigorously documented examination of the new reproductive methods...[the author] argues the women are being used and abused by the new fertility technology. Her message, to be aware of the emotional, legal and political dangers of this reproductive technology, is compelling.”


The Genetic Revolution
by Dr Patrick Dixon
UK, 1993
The Genetic Revolution

Today's dream...or tomorrow's nightmare?

Looks at genetic engineering in our food, animals and the risks of future disasters through chemical warfare as well as the feasibility of human clones — “to create a master race for a dictator or for the ever hungry transplant market” — and the legal and ethical questions raised.


The Gene Wars
by Robert Cook-Deegan
USA, 1995
Gene wars
ISBN 0 393 31399 9

Science, politics and the Human Genome.

From Publishers Weekly:
“Launched in 1990 with federal support, the Human Genome Project to map the genetic code embodied in the six feet of DNA coiled inside every human cell holds the promise of identifying the genes involved in specific diseases. Cook-Degan, a physician and consultant who directed a 1988 Congressional study on genome research and is now with the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, tracks the program's early history and politics in this absorbing study.”


The Politics of Reproduction
by Mary O'Brien
USA, 1981
The Politics of Reproduction
From the back cover: “[this book] is a critique of traditional political thought. It focuses centrally upon the nature and difference of male and female experience of biological reproduction, and upon the impact of male reproductive experience on the theory and practice of politics.”

The Reproductive Revolution
by Peter Singer and Diane Wells
Australia, 1984
The Reproductive Revolution

New ways of making babies

From the back cover: “this is the first through study of the new techniques and the ethical questions they raise: in vitro fertilisation, embryo freezing, surrogate motherhood, ectogenesis (development outside the womb), as well as cloning, sex selection, and genetic engineering.”


Towards Reproductive Certainty
edited by Robert Jansen and David Mortimer
USA, 1999
Towards Reproductive Certainty

Fertility and Genetics Beyond 1999

The Plenary proceedings of the 11th world congress on IVF and human reproductive genetics.

This book has many interesting papers that were presented a the congress, recommended:

  • Psychosocial impact of infertility on men
  • Follow-up of IVF families
  • Infertile mothers
  • A perspective from research and experience
  • Egg donation: the lessons from commercial activities
  • Donor insemination: which families tell
  • Sperm donation: the donors right to know
  • Parental responsibility: descendants as property
  • Where is anonymous reproduction taking us
  • Medical ethics and the state

Whose Life is It
by Kaye Healey
Australia, 1992
Whose Life Is It?

Articles about issues such as abortion, euthanasia, embryo research and IVF.

Under "Embryo Research" there are articles on the history of IVF and embryo transfer, clinics being silent about sperm claims, test-tube babies for grannies, IVF - mother's joy or a fear of men?...


Women as Wombs
by Janice G Raymond
USA, 1995
Women as Wombs

Reproductive technologies and the battle over women's freedom

From the back cover: “Under the guise of laboratory science, the biomedical establishment is using women's bodies as the biological laboratories of the future...[the author] asserts that far from being issues of choice, these techniques include IVF, surrogacy and sex predetermination, are actually a threat to women's basic human rights.”


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