The act of
embryo donation, or giving away excess embryos crated for in-vitro
fertilization to infertile women, has recently brought up some controversy.
Currently the act is approved by organizations such as the American Society for
Reproductive Medicine, as long as the embryos are not sold, they are donated.
Legally there is nothing against this practice either, as long as the embryos
are generated for self-use, and the extras are donated. However some problems
have recently come to light with the use of for profit embryo banks selling the
excess embryos.
First of
all these for profit embryo banks cause ethical dilemmas in how they treat the
embryos in order to maximize profit. In November of 2012 “the Los Angeles Times
reported on one such clinic that ‘sharply cuts costs by creating a single batch
of embryos from one oocyte donor and one sperm donor, then divvying it up among
several patients’”. There seems to be something very ethically wrong with
taking the excess embryos not used for in-vitro fertilization and making them
into more and more embryos to give to mare and more infertile mothers. What is
even more frightening is that this practice is, as of now, legal in all but two
states.
There are
even more basic ethical dilemmas posed by the sale of these embryos. First of
all selling the embryos could lead to the exploitation of the poor, selling
their embryos in order to survive. Furthermore the sale of embryos is also
extremely problematic if you consider life to start at conception. Then this
practice is similar to selling a life, something ethically abhorrent.
Finally this
practice would lead to many legal dilemmas as well. The most interesting one
brought up in this article is “What would happen to such embryos if a gamete
provider objects to the sale after fertilization or demands that the embryos be
returned or destroyed?” If there is a problem after fertilization occurs who
legally is right? Is the donor allowed to force and abortion? Is the recipient
now in control? These are all questions that will have to be answered if the
for profit embryo clinics are allowed to continue to operate.
1 comment:
I'm curious about exactly what you meant by, 'the sale of embryos is also extremely problematic if you consider life to start at conception': is there any remaining moral issue if you do not?
Take, for example, your issues with using a single batch of embryos several times. Who, exactly, is being harmed? I can accept that this would be ethically troubling if we are taking a life and manipulating it, duplicating it, selling it, giving it away, but if it just a batch of cells, what exactly is the dilemma?
This is interesting because it shows us the far-reaching result of viewing life as beginning at conception instead of at some later point in the development of the fetus. Not only does it affect our views on abortion, our views of stem cell research, and so forth, but it makes an enormous difference for the way we approach issues revolving around early life. To those who take life to begin at conception, we are talking about human beings, of the highest order of moral importance; to those who do not, we are talking about beings with the moral importance of cheek cells. The contrasts couldn't be starker, and this example highlights that. There is plenty wrong with selling a human life; there is nothing wrong with selling some cheek cells.
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