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. 2025 Apr 12;26(1):46.
doi: 10.1186/s12910-025-01202-8.

The high-priority ethical issues of advanced paternal age: perspectives from a panel of experts in the fields of men reproduction and family building

Vincent Couture  1 , Émy Coiteux  2 , Marianne Beaulieu  2 , Timothey Bédard  3 , Kévin Lavoie  2
Affiliations

The high-priority ethical issues of advanced paternal age: perspectives from a panel of experts in the fields of men reproduction and family building

Vincent Couture et al. BMC Med Ethics. .

Abstract

Background: Research shows that the age of fathers at the time of conception is correlated with detrimental effect for the health of the future offspring. This situation raises ethical questions regarding the priority of the principle of reproductive autonomy of men of advanced age over the well-being of their future offspring. This problem leads to other normative implications such as the value of introducing limits to the use of medically assisted reproduction, and the development of public health interventions. For the moment, this ethical reflection is mostly speculative and calls to open up the discussion. The aim of this research was to survey experts, working in related fields to the topic of advanced paternal age (APA), regarding the top priority ethical issues of this emerging subject.

Methods: We recruited experts concerned by APA with backgrounds in health sciences, ethics, social work and reproductive medicine. We conducted a modified e-Delphi panel that lasted three rounds to build a consensual list of issues. The last round took the form of structured interviews exploring the results of the previous rounds.

Results: The top four issues according to the panel are: (1) Should APA be included as a criterion for prenatal genetic screening? (2) Should we raise awareness on reproductive health in relation to the age of fathers? (3) How can health-care providers support patients in the context of APA? (4) How can research inform the public without stigmatizing fathers of advanced age?

Conclusions: These exploratory results suggest that the issues of how to inform various audiences properly on APA are important concerns for experts.

Clinical trial number: Not applicable.

Keywords: Advanced paternal age; Clinical ethics; Empirical bioethics; Late paternity; Modified e-Delphi; Public health ethics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The project adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki and received approval from the Université Laval Research Ethics Board under study number 2021–158/14–06-2021. The study was considered as posing minimal risk. Prior to participating in the study, all participant signed an online informed consent form. During the subsequent data analysis, personal information was removed. The project data has been securely stored on Université Laval servers with a restricted access limited to the research team. Consent for publication: Not Applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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