Coming soon to your clinic: patient-friendly ART

Abstract

The current practice in medically assisted reproduction is still too exclusively focused on effectiveness and success rates. This has a number of considerable, and more importantly, avoidable drawbacks. Single embryo transfer was an important move away from this model to include safety and welfare of mother and child. Patient-friendly ART goes one big step further. It is composed of a mix of four criteria: cost-effectiveness, equity of access, minimal risk for mother and child and minimal burden for patients. All four components have a strong normative ethical basis: cost-effectiveness relies on the optimal use of community resources to maximise well-being; equity of access is based on justice, minimal risk is founded on the fundamental non-maleficence rule and minimal burden is largely based on the autonomy principle. The inclusion of the four criteria in decision-making about treatment would express these values in clinical practice.