Ethical Dilemmas in Male Infertility

Recent decades have witnessed a significant rise in the numbers of couples seeking infertility care worldwide (Balen 2008). This phenomenon has been driven, in part, by the availability of assisted reproductive therapies (ART) and the social circumstances that motivate couples to defer having children until they are older. If both these phenomena persist into the future, we can anticipate that more patients will seek treatment for infertility and more healthcare providers will choose to specialize in reproductive health to meet these needs. Therefore, it is increasingly important that physicians evaluate and treat these patients in ways that are both ethically and medically sound.