Ethical aspects of donor insemination.

A journal of medical ethics is likely to be judged by three criteria: by the discernment with which medical procedures are selected for consideration; by the elegance and accuracy with which they are presented; and by the quality of the ethical commentary offered upon them. The choice of artificial insemination as the procedure to be amined n this first number ofa new journal may be questioned on the ground that, while it is so much discussed, there is so little new to say. The choice will be approved, however, if it can direct attention to the issues; if it can, in short, channel the diffused discussion into more sharply defined areas and more precise terms. This is not a task for the ethical commentator alone. Medical practitioners, perhaps, reading the account of the procedures, may well see points of a scientific or clinical nature reqing clarification further study, further investigation. This is one object of scientific reporting an ethical requirement in contemporary practice to submit one's own work to the judgment of peers and to the possibility of development, improvement, or incorporation into the work of others. There are no zones of restricted entry in valid medical science. But reporting of this sort is commonly done in the existing journals; it would be only a secondary purpose, possibly only a byproduct, in a journal of medical ethics, unless scientific or clinical clarification were pursued for the sake of clarifying the attendant ethical issues. It looks as though the ethical commentator, although he has not the sole responsibility, has nevertheless a major responsibility for carrying the discussion forward in the direction required; although, again, ethical commentary may -properly be expected among the practitioners themselves as well as from a sympathetic bystander from another discipline. The ethics of artificial insemination in general have been ventilated in two recent publications in Britain (Wolstenholme and Fitzsimmons, I973; Jones and Bodmer, 1974), as well as in a considerable interrelated literature in the USA (eg, Ramsey, 1970; Curran, 1973; Dunstan, 1974). It would be tedious to recapitulate those treatments here. Comment is limited to points raised in the papers in this number of the journal although all of them are pursued further in the literature cited.