Tag: Anne Drapkin Lyerly

Assessing, communicating, and managing risk are among the most challenging tasks in the practice of medicine and are particularly difficult in the context of pregnancy. We analyze common scenarios in medical decision making around pregnancy, from reproductive health policy and clinical care to research protections. We describe three tendencies in...

OBJECTIVE: To describe factors that affect infertility patients’ decision making regarding their cryopreserved embryos. DESIGN: Forty-six semistructured in-depth interviews of individuals and couples participating in IVF programs. SETTING: Two major southeastern academic medical centers. PATIENT(S): Fifty-three individuals, including 31 women, 8 men, and 7 couples. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Qualitative analysis...

In recent years, critics of modern obstetrics have cited technology as responsible for women’s discontent regarding childbirth. In this essay, I investigate and pry apart the connection between the quality of childbirth experience and technology. After identifying three factors considered constitutive of a ‘good birth,’ I demonstrate how technology can...

Since the first successful transplantation of umbilical cord blood in 1988, cord blood has become an important source of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells for the treatment of blood and genetic disorders. Significant progress has been accompanied by challenges for scientists, ethicists, and health policy makers. With the recent recognition...

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the existing literature regarding the social implications of embryo cryopreservation and outline areas in need of further study. RESULT(S): The potential social impact of oocyte cryopreservation has not been investigated. Embryo cryopreservation has been increasingly used to improve the cost-effectiveness of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and expand...

Lisa Morgan arrives in the office of Dr. Karen Anderson, her obstetrician/gynecologist. Dr. Anderson, who is going over her schedule for the day, hopes that Lisa is not pregnant again. Less than 2 years ago, Dr. Anderson had performed a therapeutic abortion for Lisa, who is now 20 years old...

The use of aggregated quality of life estimates in the formation of public policy and practice guidelines raises concerns about the moral relevance of variability in values in preferences for health care. This variability may reflect unique and deeply held beliefs that may be lost when averaged with the preferences...

When surgery is performed on pregnant women for the sake of the fetus (MFS or maternal fetal surgery). it is often discussed in terms of the fetus alone. This usage exemplifies what philosophers call the fallacy of abstraction: considering a concept as if it were separable from another concept whose...