How I Got Pregnant

Abstract

This short story raises ethical issues about a woman’s request for medical assistance to get pregnant. In this fictional account, a 34-year-old woman has been trying to get pregnant for the last year. Her husband would like to keep trying for one more year, but the woman loses patience. She visits an ob-gyn and requests artificial insemination. She does not intend to tell her husband about this medical assistance. The doctor has helped single women, lesbian couples, and married couples with pregnancies, but he feels conflicted by this request. The doctor and the woman discuss their concerns and plans. Then they decide on a course of action. In a creative way, this story aims to bring to life ethical issues about assisted reproduction, complex relationships, individual choice, nonjudgmental attitudes, deception, confidentiality, genetic connections, and social parents. But this story is not a textbook case that illustrates a clearly defined ethical issue. On the contrary, the story shows that some common ethical ideas don’t quite fit the characters’ experiences and the readers’ reactions.