The Ethics of Fertility Preservation for Paediatric Cancer Patients: From Offer to Rebuttable Presumption

Abstract

Given advances in the science of fertility preservation and the link between fertility choices and wellbeing, it is time to reframe our ethical thinking around fertility preservation procedures for children and young people with cancer. The current framing of fertility preservation as a possible offer may no longer be universally appropriate. There is an increasingly pressing need to discuss the ethics of failing to preserve fertility, particularly for patient groups for whom established techniques exist. I argue that the starting point for deliberating about a particular patient should be a rebuttable presumption that fertility preservation ought to be attempted. Consideration of the harms ..