Reproductive health. An ethical perspective

There are a number of important ethical issues involved in the area of women's reproductive health care. Only a few of these could be covered in this short paper. Abortion is perhaps the most controversial issue of all and raises a number of ethical issues related to the rights of the woman versus the rights of the fetus. Since abortion is legal in the United States, the issue of the role of the obstetrician-gynecologist is discussed, particularly as related to the shortage of physicians willing to perform the procedure and the paucity of abortion training in obstetrics/gynecology residency programs. Other issues discussed include teen pregnancy, contraceptive research and pharmaceutical company contraceptive pricing strategies, high rates of maternal mortality in the developing world and human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among women and children.