Ethical analyses in the development of congressional public policy

A wide range of conflicting established moral viewpoints makes development of public policy related to infertility difficult. Where there are pluralities of viewpoints and no single established moral approach, uniform solutions are questionable. The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), is a nonpartisan analytic support agency that serves the United States Congress by providing objective analyses of major public policy issues related to scientific and technological change. Because analysis of ethical issues is an important part of technology assessment, OTA included a thematic analysis of ethical issues in the report, Infertility: Medical and Social Choices. A consideration of whether infertility is a disease was an important conceptual starting point, and religious perspectives were reviewed as possible sources of moral and ethical insight.