Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Fertility preservation consists of a set of procedures that help people maintain their reproductive ability in order to have a genetic child in the future. Nowadays, these procedures are widely accepted as long as they fall within the two categories of medical or social justification. In the first category, patients may lose their fertility due to diseases or treatment-related complications, while, in the second, healthy patients wish to preserve their ability to have children in the future for social and personal reasons. Since these procedures are considered invasive, many questions and criticisms have been raised about their application in the case of healthy women who seek them merely on account of aging.In this descriptive-analytic study, ethical issues were retrieved from books, papers, international guidelines, theses, declarations and instructions, and even some weekly journals, using keywords related to fertility preservation such as embryo cryopreservation, oocyte cryopreservation, and women’s reproductive autonomy. In cases of medical necessities, fertility preservation is considered acceptable and consistent with the principle of beneficence, which is the most important principle of medical ethics. As for cases that only have social justifications, some argue that they contradict the principle of non-maleficence. Nevertheless, a large number of feminists and scholars believe in women’s reproductive autonomy and therefore consider them ethical, provided that certain conditions are observed.

Keywords: fertility preservation, freezing, women’s reproductive autonomy

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