When the health care industry came under the environmental microscope, the daily work of treating patients was discovered to be highly wasteful of natural and financial resources.
Marcia C. Inhorn, PhD, MPH and Pasquale Patrizio, MD, MBE
Low-cost in vitro fertilization (LCIVF) is better than no infertility treatment in countries that prohibit adoption and third-party reproductive assistance.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(3):228-237. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.ecas1-1803.
Patients seeking IVF are highly motivated to become parents and may wish to preserve financial resources for surrogacy or adoption should IVF not succeed, so risk sharing appeals to them, which makes its high cost especially problematic.
Family planning to mitigate climate change should reflect patients’ values and preferences, which physicians should elicit during contraceptive counseling.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(12):1157-1163. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.12.ecas1-1712.
When deciding whether to provide assisted reproductive services to a postmenopausal woman, the doctor must consider the well-being of the future child but not put social concerns above the individual patient's interests.