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Stellan Welin

Publications and source records attributed to Stellan Welin.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Reproductive ectogenesis: the third era of human reproduction and some moral consequences.

In a well known story Derek Parfit describes a disconnection between two entities that normally (in real life) travel together through space and time, namely your personal identity consisting of both mind and body. Realising the possibility of separation, even if it might never happen in real life, new questions arise that cast doubt on old solutions. In human reproduction, in real life, at present the fetus spends approximately nine months inside the pregnant woman. But, we might envisage other possibilities. Historically, the first era is the normal conception inside the woman, the growth of the fetus in the womb and then, after nine months, birth and the appearance of a new individual. The second era is In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF). The fetus starts outside the woman as a fertilised egg, moves to the body of the woman and spends nine month there, where the body of the woman and the fetus travel together in space-time to separate at birth. In the third era of reproductive ectogenesis, the two never travel together. The fetus spends its gestational time entirely outside the woman's body. We have two entities separated in space-time the whole time. The intimate connection consisting in the fetus being a part of the woman's body is gone. In this paper I will briefly comment on the three eras of human reproduction--and primarily on the relationship between the new individual and the woman--and then spend some time with a fictional story illustrating some moral consequences of the third era. The story is from Pig Pharmaceuticals Limited and how they in the year 2050 report the successful development of pig-related pregnancies with transgenic pigs as surrogate mothers.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Non-therapeutic ventilation of potential donor is ethically acceptable. It allows time to consider for both the family and the personnel].

In the debate on organ donation it has been argued that all medical care of patients in intensive care units should be undertaken solely for the good of the patient and that it is wrong to initiate non-therapeutic ventilation in order that such a patient may later become an organ donor. We argue against this view. We think the ethically relevant instant is not the time of death but the point where the physicians deem it pointless to undertake curative measures. We envisage two cases for such non-therapeutic ventilation. One is when a patient is deemed to be in a terminal state (for example after having suffered significant intra-cranial bleeding), and there are no curative measures to be taken. In this case the patient is unconscious and the decision for ventilator treatment must be taken with short notice. Here we recommend that such patients are put on ventilators and the relatives are consulted afterwards. The other case is when a patient, already ventilated, is in a terminal state, unconscious, and the physicians deem that curative measures no longer can be taken. In this case we recommend that ventilation be continued. In both cases, such a policy might provide more organs for transplantation. It could benefit many and it will hurt no one.

Decision Making↗