Please answer the following in multi-paragraph form and follow the rubric:
CASE 1
The Fate of Frozen Embryos
Abstract
Background: The moral status of the human embryo is particularly controversial in the United States, where one debate has centered on embryos created in excess at in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics. Little has been known about the disposal of these embryos.
Methods: We mailed anonymous, self-administered questionnaires to directors of 341 American IVF clinics.
Results: 217 of 341 clinics (64 percent) responded. Nearly all (97 percent) were willing to create and cryo-preserve extra embryos. Fewer, but still a majority (59 percent), were explicitly willing to avoid creating extras. When embryos did remain in excess, clinics offered various options: continual cryopreservation for a charge (96 percent) or for no charge (4 percent), donation for reproductive use by other couples (76 percent), disposal prior to (60 percent) or following (54 percent) cryopreservation, and donation
for research (60 percent) or embryologist training (19 percent). Qualifications varied widely among the personnel responsible for securing couples’ consent for disposal and for conducting disposal itself. Some clinics performed a religious or quasi-religious disposal ceremony. Some clinics required a couple’s
participation in disposal; some allowed but did not require it; some others discouraged or disallowed it.
Conclusions: The disposal of human embryos created in excess at American IVF clinics varies in ways suggesting both moral sensitivity and ethical
divergence.
Consider Case 1, from chapter 8 in the textbook (Vaughn, 456): There are a number of options concerning what to do with frozen embryos, created via IVF. For example, they could be kept frozen indefinitely for later implantation, though few embryos survive the thawing/implant process. Alternatively, they could be donated to labs and used for research. Some might see this as creating a human organism merely for research purposes. Lastly, unused embryos can simply be disposed of/destroyed. Which option do you think is the most morally correct/justifiable? According to what moral standard/theory?
CASE 2
Causing Deaf Children
(New Scientist)—A few years ago, a lesbian couple in the U.S. sparked controversy when they chose a
deaf sperm donors to ensure their children, like them, would be deaf. Now it appears that some would-be parents are resorting to pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to achieve the same thing, by selecting and implanting embryos that will develop into deaf children. This comes from a survey by the Genetics and Public Policy Center in Washington DC on how PGD is being used in the U.S. Deep inside the report is this paragraph: “Some prospective parents have sought PGD to select an embryo for the presence of a particular disease or disability, such as deafness, in order that the child would share that characteristic with the parents. Three percent of IVF-PGD clinics report having provided PGD to couples who seek to use PGD in this manner.” It is not clear how many, if any, children have been born after embryo selection for a disability, or which disabilities have been selected for. I asked Susannah Baruch, the lead author of the GPPC report, who told me that the team does not have any more details. So let’s do the sums: Since the survey included 137 IVF-PGD clinics, 3% means 4 couples at least, more if you assume some of the 200 clinics who did not respond to the survey have also provided this service. And since the success rate of IVF is roughly 30%, even if each couple made only one attempt at least one child must have been born with a designer disability, most likely deafness, with the help of PGD.
Consider Case 2, from chapter 9 in the textbook (Vaughn, 580-581): The couple wants to raise a child that is deaf, like them. To do this, they deliberately create an embryo that will be deaf. In such cases, have the child and its future been harmed? If deafness is not a harm, what about couples with other conditions who want to have children like them (i.e. couples with dwarfism or Down’s syndrome)? What genetic predispositions constitute harm to a child, such that it would be wrong to allow a child to be born that way?
NOTE: if you are going to cite, please try to use the chapter I attracted if possible. The chapter is from the book: Bioethics principle, issues, and cases by lewis vaughn.
