ASRM issues official statement

The peak body for assisted reproduction in the US has dispelled lingering doubts amongst its members and declared that providing reproductive services for transgender people is ethical. The Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has issued a formal opinion that there are no reasons to view transgender parenting unfavourably.

“Unless other factors disqualify transgender persons from fertility services, based on empirical evidence rather than stereotype or bias, we find no ethical basis to deny reproductive services to transgender individuals.”

The committee argues that it would actually be wrong to deny patients this right. “Professional autonomy, while a significant value in deciding whom to treat, is limited in this case by a greater ethical obligation, and in some jurisdictions, a legal duty, to regard all persons equally, regardless of their gender identity.”

It appears that some of the ASRM’s members have had misgivings in the past about the ability of transgenders to care for children. However the ASRM reassures them that they have nothing to worry about.

“The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry affirms that ‘there is no evidence to support that parents who are … transgender are per se deficient in parenting skills, child-centered concerns, and parent-child attachments compared with heterosexual parents’.” 

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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