Fertility treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to challenges in fertility preservation practices and has led to ethical issues, especially in developing countries. This paper provides a systematic review on this topic. At the beginning of the pandemic, several countries issued directions to suspend fertility treatments except among cancer patients. However, fertility preservation practices resumed gradually. The pandemic has evoked three major issues. First, many voices call for treating infertility as an essential medical condition in individual cases. There is no or negligible risk of transmission of COVID-19 through fertility treatment procedures or pregnancy. Second, there are weaknesses in health systems, especially in African countries. Third, there is enhanced discrimination and, in particular, a need to seriously consider inequality and social stratification in Africa. Oncofertility practices may be unevenly provided. The use of telemedicine to reduce nonessential contacts and the role of the Oncofertility Consortium in developing countries are highlighted.

Who Gets Scarce Medical Resources during a COVID-19 Pandemic? Let's not beat about the Bush.

Except for such rare situations where it might be determined absence of physician's imputability, physicians cannot ̳save the most lives while respecting the legal rights of the patient' without violating the overarching principle ̳every human life has equal value'. Arguing to the contrary is a conscious hypocritical attitude, or in other words, a fiction. Medical law and ethics long since carry with its various fictions. Furthermore, in a public health emergency such as the current COVID-19 crisis, medical law and ethics change and shift the focus from the patient-centered model towards the public health-centered model. Under these particular circumstances, this fiction becomes striking, and it can no longer be swept under the rug. As health emergencies can happen anywhere, anytime, the patient prioritization in circumstances of limited resources should be accepted. Medical law and ethics should back away from strict commitment to placing paramount emphasis on the value of human life. It is time for medical law and ethics to leave taboo-related hypocritical attitudes, and venture to make a historic compromise. To do so, three principles should be met: subsidiarity, proportionality, and consensus and social proof.