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United States43729 Posts
I was musing on this today and I thought it provided a very different and interesting source of hypotheticals for looking at embryos, when life starts, the obligation to carry an embryo to term and so forth.
So, first, some background.
IVF stands for in vitro fertilisation, basically fertilisation of an egg outside the body. It's used with couples who are struggling to conceive naturally to help them have children. Basically you get eggs from the woman using science, you get sperm from the man using his hand, you mix them up, you wait for two or three cell divisions and then you put the mix back into the woman using science and hopefully a baby happens.
Why it's interesting
1. The conception happens outside of the body.
- This means that there is no default mother to place responsibility for carrying it to term upon. Unlike normal conception where the default is that the egg is attached to some woman's womb in IVF it's in a test tube. The default position of the egg is not on it's way to becoming a person if not interfered with but rather completely fucked unless interfered with. Does this different default position change the value of the fertilised egg?
- In the hypothetical case that the mother changes her mind before the egg is implanted we get a bunch of great moral problems to think on. We now have a pre-emptive abortion where a woman chooses to not get pregnant with a baby she already chose to conceive. For the anti-abortionists among you, should she be forcibly implanted with the fertilised egg? If not, what happens to it? Does it still come under "my body, my right" if it's not in her body?
- Oddly enough there was a case in the UK when a couple broke up after a successful course of IVF resulted in the fertilisation of eggs. The man wanted the eggs destroyed whereas the woman, who had subsequently had her ovaries removed due to cancer, wanted to keep them because they were her only chance of ever having a natural child. The genetic material that made up the fertilised eggs had come from both of them while the eggs weren't in the body of either of them. Should the man be allowed to abort their eggs in this case or should the woman be allowed to carry them against his will?
- In the case of unwanted fertilised eggs should effort be made to find a potential surrogate to give birth to them? Perhaps hiring unemployed teenage mothers to squeeze them out (rather than more of their own, amirite?) and give them a chance at life. If you're not going to give these eggs a womb to live in is it justifiable to destroy them? In my opinion this is where the hypothetical gets really cool. The core argument for abortion is not that the mother has the right to kill her unborn children but rather than the mother has the right to control her own body which includes ending a pregnancy, the death of the unborn child is an unfortunate side effect. With a fertilised egg on ice nobody is having their right to their own body in any way violated by it, it's just sitting on ice, so killing it becomes a deliberate act rather than an unfortunate side effect. Does this mean it is worse to destroy a fertilised test tube egg than a normal abortion? Is it justifiable to destroy it if nobody wants to carry it to birth in their womb? Is there an obligation to carry it upon the creation of it and if so who has this obligation? If, for example, the mother dies before implantation should the father then hire a surrogate mother because he has an obligation to ensure his unborn child is born if he can?
- If you're not going to force anyone to make sure the fertilised eggs get carried to term and nobody wants them but you don't want to destroy them because they're fertilised eggs which are still completely viable and could become people if they only got a womb to bake in for 9 months then what do you do with them? Store them indefinitely even though you're getting lots of eggs and no women who randomly want to be implanted with eggs? Is there a moral difference between indefinitely storing the eggs and destroying them? If yes, would that mean that if a pregnant woman decided to pause her pregnancy indefinitely and never resume it (and tell you she planned to never resume it) that'd be morally different to aborting the child? It wouldn't get born either way but in one it'd technically retain potential life. Should the state pay for the protection of these unborn potential citizens, they may only be 8 cells but they're still completely viable and could become people if only given a chance.
2. Surplus eggs
When an egg is implanted the magic doesn't always happen, sometimes it doesn't work just like a lot of naturally conceived eggs which the body will discard for whatever reasons. To save time and money IVF is usually done in bulk, the woman will get fertility treatments and will have a dozen or so eggs harvested at the same time. Then all the eggs are fertilised, even though she only wants one baby. The others will generally get destroyed which is great for us in hypothetical ethics land.
- Is it justifiable to fertilise more eggs than you plan to carry to term? This is literally abortion of convenience, deliberately creating fertilised human embryos (they've split to 8 cells or so) with the intent to destroy most of them in order to save time and money. Should it be allowed?
- IVF is expensive and time consuming and an individual egg has a fairly low success rate. If a woman is forced to go one egg at a time then she may run out of money or fertile years and not be able to have a child at all. Consider this hypothetical. She has ten unfertilised eggs sitting in test tubes with a load of sperm in a test tube next to them. She is told that the chance of success for an egg is roughly 10% and she can afford three attempts. If she tries to avoid discarding embryos then there is a 73% (0.9^3) chance that she simply won't have a child, that there would be a potential human who would have lived had she fertilised all of them, that did not get to live. Does that potential human have no value because it is theoretical because the egg and sperm that would make it have glass between them? If she has all ten fertilised there is a 65% (1-0.9^10) chance she'll end up having an actual child, by choosing to fertilise all the eggs she's doubled the chance of one of them actually becoming a person but also guaranteed the death of fertilised eggs whereas previously they'd have died unfertilised. Is this worth it? Are the embryos at 8 cells so much more valuable than the unfertilised eggs at 1 cell that they should be protected even at the cost of lowering the chance that an actual child is born of one of them? Also, in this case, the embryos are being protected by making sure that if you do discard the egg you discard it before it is fertilised, the embryos aren't being kept safe by going one round of IVF at a time, they're just never existing.
- Is it better to discard an unfertilised egg and some sperm than an 8 cell embryo or is it essentially the same? If an embryo is given value and protection because of that and it results in people simply discarding unfertilised eggs and sperm such that the embryo you're trying to protect never actually exists have you actually protected it? In the above example placing a different value of the embryo to the egg actually lowers the odds of any egg becoming a child, is an embryo still morally equivalent to a child despite this?
- The decision of which embryos to implant and which to destroy essentially amounts to selective abortion. Say a woman starts with ten eggs, six become viable embryos and the doctors wish to implant three to give her decent odds of having a single child. Three of the embryos are boys, three are girls. She wants a girl, should she choose those three and have the three boy embryos destroyed? Is this morally any different from her getting pregnant naturally, finding out the sex and aborting it if it's a boy? Statistically is it better to get an actual gender based abortion to get a girl (if she got pregnant and aborted boys until she got a girl there would be a 50% chance of her having no abortions, a 75% chance of having one or less, 87.5% chance of her having two or less, 93.75% chance of her having three or less)? By those numbers discarding the three male embryos just because she wants a girl is statistically way worse than just aborting boys after a natural pregnancy. Or is it better because three had to get aborted anyway so you might as well choose? Should she randomise it and just pick three of the six or does it make sense to choose?
3. Life begins at implantation
- The argument that an embryo has value is based on the assumption that at the moment of conception it is a potential human life which, lacking outside interference, will possibly become a human. This isn't true of an IVF embryo until implantation which happens after conception or possibly not at all. If it still needs outside interference to possibly become a human then how is an embryo in a test tube any different from an egg in a test tube with some sperm available? Both can potentially become humans, one needs to be implanted, the other needs to be mixed then implanted but neither will ever become anything more than the cells they already are without outside interference. In terms of their odds of becoming a human they're about the same. Does this mean they're both potential humans or does the fertilised embryo get to be a potential human while the egg and sperm don't? Given the act of fertilising the embryo was a deliberate human intervention does that mean an embryo in a needle ready to be implanted is more of a potential human than one in a test tube (it is after all closer to being born) or are they both potential humans with the same value? If there are both potential humans with the same value, albeit one closer to birth than the other due to human intervention, then how can we consider the unfertilised egg and sperm cells as not potential human even though the same human intervention separates them from the embryo?
- Is a fertilised egg on ice alive in the same sense as one in the womb? If a woman might freely choose to discard one before implantation (when its chance of naturally progressing to birth is 0) should she be able to afterwards (when it has a decent chance of becoming a child)? Does the "life begins at conception" not apply to test tube babies because it is built on the assumption that conception naturally leads to pregnancy (a reasonable assumption at the time) which has been outdated by science? If the correct interpretation of that stance is "life begins when it will, lacking outside interference, become an independent living thing" then does life begin at implantation for IVF babies? Or, looking at it in the opposite direction, does life begin when you forget to put a condom in your pocket several hours before you inevitably have sex with your ovulating girlfriend? If the moment of conception is not innately special but is rather just the usual starting point of a special sequence then what does that mean for ensoulment?
Feel free to answer any of these ethical questions or add your own questions from this moral minefield. Post any related musings you want to too. Those who know me will know my stance on abortion is pro-choice relating to freedom over your own body, something which I'm not sure is relevant to this, but I thought I'd state my background anyway. Have fun.
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I think the man doesn't have the right to demand an abortion. While the whole "her body, her rules" thing has its limits, I'd say this falls under that. If you didn't want to have children with this woman, then either deadbeat dad your way out of the situation or, better yet, don't fucking have children with this woman.
Similarly, though, I feel the woman doesn't have the right to get an abortion if the father wants the babies to live. Remember, to people who are pro-life, aborting their children is nothing short of murder. Very few things can justify inflicting that level of emotional harm on another human being, especially since this is such a subjective topic.
If an abortion is to happen, it must be agreed upon by path parties.
(Naturally, there will be unusual circumstances that change the morality of the situation, i.e. spiteful bitch carrying child to term so she can suck more money out of her ex-husband. The above post was written under the assumption that nothing crazy is happening.)
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United States43729 Posts
On July 05 2013 06:01 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
I think the man doesn't have the right to demand an abortion. While the whole "her body, her rules" thing has its limits, I'd say this falls under that. If you didn't want to have children with this woman, then either deadbeat dad your way out of the situation or, better yet, don't fucking have children with this woman.
Similarly, though, I feel the woman doesn't have the right to get an abortion if the father wants the babies to live. Remember, to people who are pro-life, aborting their children is nothing short of murder. Very few things can justify inflicting that level of emotional harm on another human being, especially since this is such a subjective topic.
If an abortion is to happen, it must be agreed upon by path parties.
In the case I brought up the man wanted the embryos destroyed while they were still in the test tube. They weren't inside either of them and were made of genetic material from both of them. What you're talking about here is regular abortions, something which will very rapidly derail this topic. I'm really unsure of the relevance of anything you wrote.
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That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally.
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On July 05 2013 06:05 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:01 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
I think the man doesn't have the right to demand an abortion. While the whole "her body, her rules" thing has its limits, I'd say this falls under that. If you didn't want to have children with this woman, then either deadbeat dad your way out of the situation or, better yet, don't fucking have children with this woman.
Similarly, though, I feel the woman doesn't have the right to get an abortion if the father wants the babies to live. Remember, to people who are pro-life, aborting their children is nothing short of murder. Very few things can justify inflicting that level of emotional harm on another human being, especially since this is such a subjective topic.
If an abortion is to happen, it must be agreed upon by path parties. In the case I brought up the man wanted the embryos destroyed while they were still in the test tube. What you're talking about here is regular abortions, something which will very rapidly derail this topic.
Perhaps I misused the word "abortion." What I meant by that is aborting the process of a child's development, barring ridiculous shit like killing billions of sperm cells by masturbating into a tissue.
I personally don't distinguish between cells inside and outside the womb, at least in regards to the whole "who has the right to abort the baby" thing.
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I think it would be fantastic if people just minded their own fucking business.
User was temp banned for this post.
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United States43729 Posts
On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally.
So for you an embryo in a test tube is a human life? Care to expand upon that? It's certainly unique human genetic material but it's inert while it's frozen and has no potential to ever become more than a few cells. In your opinion is it the uniqueness that gives it it's value as a human life or is it just that it's human cells or what?
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On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally.
Why?
Whywhywhywhywhy
Substitute IVF for open heart surgery, caesarean section, and the majority of the pharmaceutical industry. They aren't natural. Natural doesn't mean good. It is not an argument. It is a descriptor.
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Aw, Kwark, you shouldn't have!
What if I said that unfertilized eggs have just as much of a right to live as any fetus 8 months in?!
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United States43729 Posts
On July 05 2013 06:11 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:05 KwarK wrote:On July 05 2013 06:01 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
I think the man doesn't have the right to demand an abortion. While the whole "her body, her rules" thing has its limits, I'd say this falls under that. If you didn't want to have children with this woman, then either deadbeat dad your way out of the situation or, better yet, don't fucking have children with this woman.
Similarly, though, I feel the woman doesn't have the right to get an abortion if the father wants the babies to live. Remember, to people who are pro-life, aborting their children is nothing short of murder. Very few things can justify inflicting that level of emotional harm on another human being, especially since this is such a subjective topic.
If an abortion is to happen, it must be agreed upon by path parties. In the case I brought up the man wanted the embryos destroyed while they were still in the test tube. What you're talking about here is regular abortions, something which will very rapidly derail this topic. Perhaps I misused the word "abortion." What I meant by that is aborting the process of a child's development, barring ridiculous shit like killing billions of sperm cells by masturbating into a tissue. I personally don't distinguish between cells inside and outside the womb, at least in regards to the whole "who has the right to abort the baby" thing.
It's interesting that you describe it as a process of development because that is exactly why the IVF topic becomes a grey area. With a frozen test tube embryo there is no process of development unless humans deliberately intervene. It'll stay 4 or 8 cells forever.
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United States43729 Posts
On July 05 2013 06:19 Blargh wrote:
Aw, Kwark, you shouldn't have!
What if I said that unfertilized eggs have just as much of a right to live as any fetus 8 months in?!
Then it becomes a question of practicality. Is it possible to deliver an 8 month old fetus and place it with adoptive parents, probably yes. Is it possible to collect periods from girls and mix them with sperm and then implant them in women to make sure that no egg is wasted, not really. Morality is often shaped more by practicality than rationality.
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On July 05 2013 06:17 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally. Why? Whywhywhywhywhy Substitute IVF for open heart surgery, caesarean section, and the majority of the pharmaceutical industry. They aren't natural. Natural doesn't mean good. It is not an argument. It is a descriptor.
I didn't say it wasn't good because it wasn't natural, lol. I said it wasn't good because it was creating a human being and then just toying around with it for the benefit of other people.
On July 05 2013 06:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally. So for you an embryo in a test tube is a human life? Care to expand upon that? It's certainly unique human genetic material but it's inert while it's frozen and has no potential to ever become more than a few cells. In your opinion is it the uniqueness that gives it it's value as a human life or is it just that it's human cells or what?
I think the uniqueness means that scientifically it's impossible to say anything but that it is a human life, but my beliefs come from the idea that life begins at conception (regardless of how conception is achieved) and that every human being has a soul and thus deserves equal rights and representation as every other person.
Obviously we've created a huge problem with IVF, in my opinion. We have these people who we've put in stasis... it's kind of disturbing. Ideally, the further creation of embryos would be outlawed and a system to "adopt an embryo" would be enacted.
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United States43729 Posts
Fair enough sc2superfan101.
While you draw your argument from a principle I don't believe in that's a logically coherent position to hold. Thanks for taking part I guess. 
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On July 05 2013 06:24 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:17 Jormundr wrote:On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally. Why? Whywhywhywhywhy Substitute IVF for open heart surgery, caesarean section, and the majority of the pharmaceutical industry. They aren't natural. Natural doesn't mean good. It is not an argument. It is a descriptor. I didn't say it wasn't good because it wasn't natural, lol. I said it wasn't good because it was creating a human being and then just toying around with it for the benefit of other people.
If natural isn't your argument, then why is this any different than regular conception? Where are they toying around? What is bad about it? Who is harmed and why? What disadvantages does this pose? You say that the people interested in this should adopt instead. Should the people who plan to conceive in whatever you define as a non 'toying around' manner be persuaded to adopt instead?
Put forth a position!
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Not that this particular point has much actual value, but if something resembling the small cluster of cells known as an embryo was found, say, on Mars, it would be unequivocally "Life" despite having no more "process of development" available to it than the same embryo in a test tube freezer on earth.
PS: this thread feels like KwarK got an itch to ban somebody so he cooked up a ban-trap. Not that it isn't thoughtful or anything, just that this thread feels like a ban-trap.
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United States43729 Posts
On July 05 2013 06:29 Sn0_Man wrote:
Not that this particular point has much actual value, but if something resembling the small cluster of cells known as an embryo was found, say, on Mars, it would be unequivocally "Life" despite having no more "process of development" available to it than the same embryo in a test tube freezer on earth.
PS: this thread feels like KwarK got an itch to ban somebody so he cooked up a ban-trap. Not that it isn't thoughtful or anything.
Same if they found a fingernail though. The question isn't whether it is cells with genetic material. The question, or at least one of the great, great many questions, is is it enough to be cells with human genetic material or does it need a womb to be special? Obviously some, like those who believe in the doctrine of ensoulment, know an answer to this that doesn't rely on making an argument but that's no fun.
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On July 05 2013 06:29 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:24 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 05 2013 06:17 Jormundr wrote:On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally. Why? Whywhywhywhywhy Substitute IVF for open heart surgery, caesarean section, and the majority of the pharmaceutical industry. They aren't natural. Natural doesn't mean good. It is not an argument. It is a descriptor. I didn't say it wasn't good because it wasn't natural, lol. I said it wasn't good because it was creating a human being and then just toying around with it for the benefit of other people. If natural isn't your argument, then why is this any different than regular conception? Where are they toying around? What is bad about it? Who is harmed and why? What disadvantages does this pose? You say that the people interested in this should adopt instead. Should the people who plan to conceive in whatever you define as a non 'toying around' manner be persuaded to adopt instead? Put forth a position!
Well, a big problem would be that some of the embryos created never get used. They are just sitting there in stasis. The people being hurt are the embryos themselves. Also, I think IVF devalues human life in the embryonic form.
Also, a lot of these attempts were unsuccessful, meaning we sacrificed human beings for the cause of perfecting the use of human beings.
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On July 05 2013 06:37 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:29 Jormundr wrote:On July 05 2013 06:24 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 05 2013 06:17 Jormundr wrote:On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally. Why? Whywhywhywhywhy Substitute IVF for open heart surgery, caesarean section, and the majority of the pharmaceutical industry. They aren't natural. Natural doesn't mean good. It is not an argument. It is a descriptor. I didn't say it wasn't good because it wasn't natural, lol. I said it wasn't good because it was creating a human being and then just toying around with it for the benefit of other people. If natural isn't your argument, then why is this any different than regular conception? Where are they toying around? What is bad about it? Who is harmed and why? What disadvantages does this pose? You say that the people interested in this should adopt instead. Should the people who plan to conceive in whatever you define as a non 'toying around' manner be persuaded to adopt instead? Put forth a position! Well, a big problem would be that some of the embryos created never get used. They are just sitting there in stasis. The people being hurt are the embryos themselves. Also, I think IVF devalues human life in the embryonic form.
Do they have any intrinsic value?
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On July 05 2013 06:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 06:09 sc2superfan101 wrote:
That's why I'm against IVF. We shouldn't be creating/wasting human lives like that. Just adopt if you want a kid and can't have one naturally. So for you an embryo in a test tube is a human life? Care to expand upon that? It's certainly unique human genetic material but it's inert while it's frozen and has no potential to ever become more than a few cells. In your opinion is it the uniqueness that gives it it's value as a human life or is it just that it's human cells or what?
Most of the pro-life position comes from the "life begins at conception" argument. So even if its frozen its still past the stage of conception and is thus a human life that is being toyed with in these frozen vats.
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Another interesting corollary to this argument is the eugenics side of things. Often as IVF is done in bulk, science can non destructively test these embryos for things like down syndrome or crippling genetic disorders and chose the most healthy one for implantation. It is conceivable that science will be able to test for things beyond genetic disorders and give the parents a list of available physical and possible even mental attributes to chose in their child and discard the rest.
This added complication adds more dimensions to the argument. Is it morally acceptable for parents to chose these physical attributes in child? As it stands no one decides your hair color or eye color but imagine if your parents did without your consent, is this acceptable? If you think IVF currently is okay, is it still when you are to destroy these embryos the reason that the child will not have blue eyes or something else that does not significantly affect the quality of life of the child? Even then, where do you drawn the line of significantly effect quality of life?
EDIT: I CAN READ THE FULL OP
Seriously it was a wall of text and I didn't read all of it but as this is already in the OP let me offer my own opinion.
I think it is perfectly acceptable to make these choices as you let artificial selection run its course even faster as it should benefit humanity in the long run. The reason why I think we will avoid a situation like in idiocracy (movie) is because this process will likely be privately funded preventing those in poor conditions and statistically more likely to breed from having access to these eugenics. The effect would be swift, within a few generations descendants those who had the assets and foresight would have a massive advantage over those without and humanity would heavily favor those with extreme foresight which I believe is one of the best traits in ultimately pushing humanity forward.
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EPT
