Health Ethics Dictionary

The termination of a pregnancy, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.

A branch of bioethics concerned with the moral, legal, and social questions raised by abortion. Central issues include bodily autonomy, fetal moral status, personhood, potentiality, moral risk, and the obligations, if any, associated with pregnancy. Philosophical debates often ask whether, when, and under what conditions abortion may be morally permissible or legally protected.

A system of beliefs and social practices that treats non-disabled bodies and minds as the norm, resulting in environments, institutions, and structures that exclude or disadvantage people with disabilities.

Barriers or discrimination that limit access to assisted reproductive technology and reproductive healthcare, especially for LGBTQIA+ individuals, racial minorities, people of lower socioeconomic status, and those in remote geographic areas.

Medical support tailored to diverse reproductive experiences, identities, relationships, and family-building goals.

A surrogacy arrangement in which the surrogate receives little or no financial compensation beyond medical or pregnancy-related expenses.

An umbrella term for medical treatments and procedures used to help individuals or couples achieve pregnancy.

The capacity and right to make informed decisions about one’s own body, life, reproduction, and healthcare without coercion. In reproductive ethics, autonomy often refers to decision-making concerning pregnancy, contraception, abortion, fertility treatment, and family formation.

A legal and ethical standard that prioritizes the health and well-being of a minor in medical decision-making.

See Autonomy.

A surgical procedure used to deliver a baby through incisions in the abdomen and uterus. C-sections may be elective, unplanned, or emergent.

The use of pressure, force, threats, or manipulation to influence decision-making, thereby undermining autonomy.

A surrogacy arrangement in which the surrogate receives financial compensation through a legal contract in exchange for carrying a pregnancy.

Treating something as a commodity that can be bought and sold. In bioethics, this often refers to concerns about treating human body parts, tissues, genes, or reproductive labor as market goods.

An ethical approach that evaluates actions or policies primarily according to their consequences.

Methods, devices, medications, or practices used to reduce the likelihood of pregnancy.

Ethical discussions concerning access to contraception, reproductive autonomy, informed consent, public policy, religious beliefs, cultural norms, and the distribution of reproductive healthcare resources.

The ability to understand relevant medical information, appreciate the consequences of available options, reason about choices, and communicate a consistent decision. Decisional capacity is decision-specific and may fluctuate over time. See also: Substantial Competence.

A concept that may be understood medically, as a condition of the body or mind, or socially, as the result of barriers, discrimination, and lack of accommodation.

The view that people with disabilities deserve equal dignity, inclusion, and protection from discrimination in society and medical decision-making.

The principle that an action with both good and bad effects may be ethically permissible if the harmful effect is unintended and the action itself is morally permissible.

A reproductive arrangement in which both the egg and sperm are donated, so the intended parent(s) have no genetic connection to the fetus.

A trained professional who provides physical, emotional, and informational support before, during, and shortly after childbirth.

A legal and ethical obligation requiring healthcare professionals to provide an appropriate standard of care, including diagnosis, treatment, referral, and patient information.

An approach to care that emphasizes the relationship between bodily experience, identity, and lived experience in clinical contexts.

The experience of life through bodily sensations, emotions, perception, and lived experience.

A step in assisted reproduction in which a fertilized embryo is placed into a uterus with the goal of implantation and pregnancy.

The condition in which reproductive choices are shaped by information, narratives, or framings that a person did not choose and cannot fully evaluate.

An experience that provides knowledge that could not have been gained without undergoing the experience itself.

The attempt to influence or improve the genetic “quality” of a population by encouraging traits considered desirable and discouraging traits considered undesirable.

The weakening or loss of scientific and practical medical knowledge due to overreliance on technology, especially AI systems.

The concern that using genetic testing or selective reproduction to avoid disability may imply that the lives of people with disabilities are less valuable.

The principle that the ability to form a family should not be constrained by traditional family models and that access to adoption, surrogacy, and assisted reproduction should be equitable.

The process of making informed decisions about whether, when, and how to have children, including the use of contraception, fertility care, reproductive counseling, pregnancy care, adoption, or other family-building options.

A framework emphasizing equitable access to fertility care, reproductive healthcare, and family-building services.

A framework for representing pregnancy that depicts the fetus as an independent subject while minimizing the relational and embodied dimensions of pregnancy.

The point at which a fetus can survive outside the uterus.

Healthcare practices and interventions intended to support an individual’s expressed gender identity and related physical, psychological, or social well-being.

A patient-centered approach to healthcare that respects gender identity and responds to the needs of gender-diverse individuals.

Professional guidance that helps individuals or prospective parents understand genetic information, risks, and probabilities when making reproductive decisions.

Unfair treatment based on real or perceived genetic traits or risks, including in employment, insurance, or social contexts.

The use of technology to alter genetic material in embryos, potentially to change traits or address inherited diseases before implantation.

Genetic modification of reproductive cells or embryos in ways that can be inherited by future generations.

A person who carries a pregnancy without having a genetic link to the baby.

A form of surrogacy in which the surrogate carries an embryo created through IVF and has no genetic link to the child.

A pregnancy associated with increased risk of medical complications for the pregnant individual, fetus, or both.

When an embryo does not attach to the uterus, often due to embryo quality, uterine conditions, or hormonal imbalance.

The process by which an individual voluntarily agrees to a medical intervention based on adequate understanding of its risks, benefits, and alternatives.

An approach to reproductive justice that recognizes how overlapping identities, including gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability, may shape reproductive autonomy and access to care.

A framework developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw that explains how overlapping social identities may create compounded forms of oppression and inequality.

A medical procedure in which an egg is fertilized with sperm in a laboratory and then transferred as an embryo into a uterus.

The person or people who intend to assume legal parenthood of a child born through surrogacy or assisted reproduction.

Health during preconception, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, including physical and mental health outcomes associated with reproduction.

Death occurring during pregnancy, childbirth, or within 42 days following the end of pregnancy.

The social and medical shift toward understanding and managing pregnancy as a condition requiring technological and biomedical intervention.

The spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week of gestation.

The possibility of committing a serious moral error or failing to fulfill a moral duty under conditions of uncertainty.

The degree of moral consideration owed to an entity or being.

Ethical debates concerning whether, when, and to what extent a fetus possesses moral significance or rights.

Traits shaped by multiple genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors rather than by a single inherited gene.

The moral and legal responsibilities associated with raising and caring for children.

Medical, physical, mental, social, and emotional care provided from conception through the postpartum period.

The question of what constitutes a person and what rights or moral protections are associated with that status.

The period following childbirth, often defined medically as lasting six to eight weeks, though physical and emotional changes may continue longer.

The view that embryos or fetuses deserve moral consideration because they have the potential to become persons.

Genetic testing performed on embryos created through IVF before implantation, often to assess genetic conditions or improve the likelihood of successful pregnancy.

The phenomenon in which the experience being consented to may alter the preferences that originally motivated consent.

The bodily, psychological, social, cultural, and historical dimensions of the experience of pregnancy.

Testing performed during pregnancy to identify possible genetic conditions or traits in a fetus.

The view that a reproductive decision is autonomous if it emerges from a process free from coercion, manipulation, or structural constraint.

The idea that prospective parents have moral reasons, or obligations, to select the child expected to have the best life.

A critical approach to bioethics that challenges heteronormative and cisnormative assumptions in healthcare and seeks to improve care for LGBTQIA+ populations.

Differences in healthcare access, treatment, quality of care, or outcomes associated with race or ethnicity, often shaped by systemic inequality and implicit bias.

The set of life plans and opportunities available to individuals, which may be affected by health, disability, social structures, and access to support.

The view that individual decisions are shaped by relationships, culture, society, and social context.

The typical childbearing period, often defined as ages 15–49, though reproductive development and fertility vary across individuals.

See Autonomy.

A framework emphasizing the right to have children, not have children, access reproductive care, and parent children in safe and supportive conditions.

A framework in which LGBTQIA+ individuals may access reproductive services while broader cisheteronormative institutional structures remain in place.

A moral principle requiring respect for autonomous decision-makers and protection for individuals with diminished autonomy.

An entitlement that implies duties or obligations and whose violation may carry moral or legal consequences.

The use of reproductive decisions or technologies to influence the traits of future children, including selecting for or against disability.

Social and economic factors that influence reproductive health, including housing, education, healthcare access, neighborhood conditions, and social context.

The view that disability is produced not only by physical or mental conditions but also by social barriers, prejudice, and lack of accommodation.

A parent-child relationship defined primarily by care, responsibility, and social roles rather than genetics.

A threshold concept in bioethics and medical decision-making referring to a person’s sufficient ability to understand information, deliberate about options, appreciate consequences, and make reasonably informed decisions, even if understanding or reasoning is incomplete.

A medical and legal arrangement in which a surrogate agrees to carry and give birth to a child intended to be raised by another person or couple.

Types of Surrogacy by Genetic Relationship

Types of Surrogacy by Compensation

The tendency to view medical and social problems primarily as technological problems requiring technological solutions.

Kristie Dotson’s concept describing the practice of limiting one’s own expression in anticipation of an audience’s unwillingness or inability to receive it.

The degree to which an AI system’s operations, assumptions, data, and decision-making processes are accessible to users and affected individuals.

The process by which a genetic variant is reassessed and reclassified, affecting the interpretation of genetic testing results.

An approach that examines the ethical implications of medical images and visual representations in healthcare and bioethics.

The ability to make a free and uncoerced choice.