Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Surrogacy is considered as one of the selective methods for infertile women especially those who don't have womb. As this method is controversial and the sides should be analyzed both ethically and legally, the purpose of this study is to scrutinize the attitude of infertile women who visit Hazrat Masoumeh Infertility Centre in Qom for surrogacy.
This cross-sectional study  conducted on  300 infertile women. The information were gathered from a two part questionnaire which in one part there was personal information and the other part was for phrases related to attitudes. The earned data were analyzed by descriptive test analysis and P<0.05 was considered significant.
The results showed that 61.3% of infertile women were in favor of surrogacy and 38.7% were against it. The highest priority in terms of attitude was the fear of an emotional relationship between the surrogate mother and the baby, and also the problems of delivering the baby from surrogate mother to the applicant couple. There was a logical statistical relation between the infertile women's attitude  and age, educational level of the woman, educational level, the educational level of infertile women's partners, years of infertility and income of the bread winner( P<0.05).
As the attitude of vast majority of the study samples  was positive and as it is important to know about opinions and preferences of families to make this action lawful, wider investigations in this field in more variable groups is recommended.

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Fertility preservation consists of a set of procedures that help people maintain their reproductive ability in order to have a genetic child in the future. Nowadays, these procedures are widely accepted as long as they fall within the two categories of medical or social justification. In the first category, patients may lose their fertility due to diseases or treatment-related complications, while, in the second, healthy patients wish to preserve their ability to have children in the future for social and personal reasons. Since these procedures are considered invasive, many questions and criticisms have been raised about their application in the case of healthy women who seek them merely on account of aging.In this descriptive-analytic study, ethical issues were retrieved from books, papers, international guidelines, theses, declarations and instructions, and even some weekly journals, using keywords related to fertility preservation such as embryo cryopreservation, oocyte cryopreservation, and women’s reproductive autonomy. In cases of medical necessities, fertility preservation is considered acceptable and consistent with the principle of beneficence, which is the most important principle of medical ethics. As for cases that only have social justifications, some argue that they contradict the principle of non-maleficence. Nevertheless, a large number of feminists and scholars believe in women’s reproductive autonomy and therefore consider them ethical, provided that certain conditions are observed.

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Women are the epitome of affection and are therefore suited for the caregiver role by nature. In Prophet Muhammad’s era, women entered one of the toughest and perhaps most masculine areas of social life, that is, the battlefield. Prophet Muhammad permitted and endorsed the presence of women in battles, and appointed troops of women to accompany him to war for the purpose of providing nursing and medical care. The importance of this issue lies in recognition of the role of Muslim women in social arenas such as battlefields. This study aims to: a) investigate the medical role and performance of women during wartime in Prophet Muhammad’s era, and b) describe the medical function of women in the Prophet’s battles while introducing some who have been active in this domain.

This was an analytic/descriptive study conducted by collecting note cards from library resources. Our findings showed that women had a significant presence in battles during the early stages of Islam, and as historical evidence confirms, they appeared in the caregiver role by the permission of Prophet Muhammad. Moreover, women’s presence was not due to a shortage of men in the battlefield, but rather because of their abilities in the field of medicine and healthcare, where they succeeded in offering a remarkable performance.

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Patients have the right to make decision about their medical care. Thus, all the available information regarding decision-making should be provided for them. In surgical context, informed consent is essential for therapeutic relationship between patient and surgeon and sustains mutual trust and shared responsibility for decision making. Thus before surgery, the surgeon should describe available treatments, benefits and harms of them to the patients. So the patient can make a correct decision. In this cross-sectional study, 200 patients underwent gynecological surgery in a hospital in Shiraz during 2014 were recruited. The questionnaire which was used in this study had three parts. The validity and reliability of the questionnaires were evaluated using expert panel and SPSS software. In this study, there was no significant association between age, marriage status, job, home place, emergency or elective surgery and the amount of informed consent. There was significant difference between patients with primary school education and patients with higher education. Patients’ participation in decision making was 57%. Patients’ information about their rights in hospital and the amount of reading informed consent form were poor. This survey shows that the amount of informed consent obtained from patients is poor. So, we should consider some changes in content and obtaining informed consent.
 

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