Bangladesh Bioethics Society 2011 Vol 2 Issue 2 Page 3 
 

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EDITORIAL 
 
 
 
INFERTILITY TREATMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY 
 
 
Western countries believe that overpopulation is the major problem of developing countries. 
They think that contraception and fertility control should be policy of resource-poor countries. 
This conviction was and still is the main barrier to consider infertility treatment in resource-
poor countries.  
 
But in developing country having children is a social obligation, due to the family (-in-law) and 
the community. In these countries children secure one’s marriage, confer social status, 
guarantees rights of property and inheritance, assist with labor, offer social security in old age 
and provide continuity by maintaining the family name. Egalitarian societies, people want 
children as part of their life plan and they suffer when they cannot fulfill this wish. However, 
because parenthood has deeper social rooted in developing countries, the social and 
psychological consequences of involuntary childlessness are often more severe and largely 
impact on the lives of men and especially women.  
 
In a Conference on Population and Development in 1994 in Cairo adopted a dentition of 
reproductive health that integrates both fertility control and infertility treatment in family 
planning. Reproductive health therefore implies that people are able to have a safe sex life 
and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide on it. Family 
planning implies both avoiding unwanted children and having wanted children. So the 
infertility treatment in the context of reproductive health and family planning is crucial for the 
ethical evaluation.  
 
A utilitarian could defend that it is the best to cure infertility by providing ART in developing 
countries to maximize happiness and well-being. Other perspective can be taken for these 
negative consequences of infertility in developing countries. These are – 1. Focus on 
changing the existing moral and social order so that infertile people will no longer be 
ostracized and discriminated. 2. Measures should be adopted to diminish the pronatalist 
ideology and its undesirable consequences. This can be done by providing education to 
women to obtain a job which gives them an alternative route to increase their self-esteem 
and to ensure economic independence and security.  
 
Like infertility, in India, China and some other countries, mother who has only daughter are 
often undergo ostracism, a reason for a man often divorce to his wife, face beating,  risk for 
suicide or fatal accidents. The main argument against this analogy is that wanting a child is 
acceptable while wanting a child of a certain sex is unacceptable.  
 
 
Shamima Parvin Lasker 
(Professor  & Head of Anatomy. City Dental College, Dhaka) 
Associate Editor 
Bangladesh Bioethics Society