Bioethics Institute Ghent, Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, Ghent, 9000, Belgium.
Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, Basel, 4056, Switzerland.
Med Health Care Philos. 2024 Sep;27(3):299-307. doi: 10.1007/s11019-024-10203-0. Epub 2024 Apr 23.
Almost all countries and fertility clinics impose age limits on women who want to become pregnant through Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). Age limits for aspiring fathers, however, are much less common and remain a topic of debate. This article departs from the principle of reproductive autonomy and a conditional positive right to receive ART, and asks whether there are convincing arguments to also impose age limits on aspiring fathers. After considering three consequentialist approaches to justifying age limits for aspiring fathers, we take in a concrete normative stance by concluding that those are not strong enough to justify such cut-offs. We reinforce our position by drawing a comparison between the case of a 39-year-old woman who wants to become a single mother via a sperm donor on the one hand, and on the other hand the same woman who wants to have a child with a 64-year-old man who she loves and who is willing to care for the child as long as he is able to. We conclude that, as long as appropriate precautions are taken to protect the welfare of the future child, couples who want to receive fertility treatment should never be limited on the basis of the age of the (male) partner. An absence of age limits for men would respect the reproductive autonomy of both the man and the woman.
几乎所有国家和生育诊所都对希望通过辅助生殖技术（ART）怀孕的女性设定了年龄限制。然而，对渴望成为父亲的男性设定年龄限制的情况则要少见得多，而且这仍然是一个争议的话题。本文背离了生殖自主权和有条件的接受 ART 的积极权利原则，并探讨了是否有令人信服的理由对渴望成为父亲的男性也设定年龄限制。在考虑了三种从后果主义角度为渴望成为父亲的男性设定年龄限制的方法之后，我们通过得出结论认为，这些理由不足以证明这种限制是合理的，从而采取了具体的规范性立场。我们通过将一位 39 岁的女性想要通过精子捐赠成为单身母亲的情况与另一种情况进行比较，即同样是这位女性想要与一位 64 岁的男性生育孩子，而这位男性愿意照顾孩子，只要他有能力。我们的结论是，只要采取适当的预防措施来保护未来孩子的福利，那么希望接受生育治疗的夫妇就不应该仅仅因为（男性）伴侣的年龄而受到限制。不对男性设定年龄限制将尊重男性和女性的生殖自主权。
