Commentary > Op-eds
'Octomom' And Brave New World Of IVF
By Gregory J. Sullivan, For The Bulletin
The obscenity of the unregulated reproductive brave new world that envelops us was brought to the attention of many Americans in the starkest way with the freakish “Octomom” story. But such an abuse of reproduction will become increasingly common if states continue in their failure to act to regulate what is currently, and indefensibly, an anything-goes field.
One state recognizes the compelling need for at least a minimal regulatory framework: Georgia. The proposed “Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos Act,” which was recently passed in the Georgia Senate, is an admirable start in reigning in the excesses of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Although it is a whittled-down version of an earlier and better bill, Georgia will take an important first step toward reproductive sanity by adopting this law.
Among other things, the bill prohibits the cloning of embryos for any purpose. The real controversy is found in the fact that the proposed law provides that “[t]he creation of an in vitro human embryo shall be solely for the purposes of initiating a human pregnancy by means of transfer to the uterus of a human female for the treatment of human infertility or cryopreservation for such treatment in the future.”
As the astute William Saletan in Slate pointed out, this provision “does not, as advertised, require that IVF be ‘for the purpose of creating children.’ It requires that IVF be ‘for the treatment of human infertility.’ The two phrases are not equivalent. Sometimes IVF is done to create children for couples who are technically or even clearly fertile. The bill, as written, would prohibit this.”
Mr. Saletan pushes right to the heart of the matter: “The more interesting question is what will happen to the use of IVF for creating children when there’s no question of infertility at all. That use is the screening of embryos for unwanted genes: preimplantation genetic diagnosis [PGD].”
In other words, a fertile couple uses IVF to produce a batch of embryos; those embryos are screened for desirable and undesirable genetic traits. Only the very best are implanted.
PGD was initially used to screen for childhood diseases that were fatal. Today, its use has expanded to include the identification of sex and other traits unrelated to health. Another word for PGD is eugenics. Selective breeding to improve the genetic quality of the race is what is being rejected by Georgia in its bill.
At its profoundest level, Georgia is attempting to provide at least some protection to the intrinsic worth of human beings. PGD turns human beings into a merely instrumental good — a radically different view. It is the difference between the vision of Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Singer.
IVF began as a last-resort method to help infertile couples have children. Its use has exploded well beyond this very limited purpose. This growth, moreover, has proceeded without any kind of serious moral scrutiny by most Americans. But certain restrictions, like the banning of PGD, will cause citizens to think about the truly radical implications of the revolution effected by IVF.
Those implications include allowing single women and homosexual couples to have children through IVF. (Male homosexuals purchase an egg and hire a womb to carry a baby to term.) Prohibition of this use of IVF would check this particularly irresponsible application, but also it would reinforce a notion that is ominously de-emphasized in the law: The best environment for the procreation and education of children is in a family with a mother and a father. Much of the dysfunctionality that has destroyed American cities and dangerously destabilized the rest of the country may be traced to the abandonment of this understanding.
How we reproduce ourselves, who is allowed to reproduce and who gets reproduced are large and important matters. To date, states have irresponsibly allowed these questions to answers themselves and most Americans cannot get moral traction on this complex issue. With new reproductive technologies developed in a moral void, those answers are utterly unacceptable.
Georgia has started down the road toward responsible political control of reproduction. All states ought to follow this movement, however modest, toward prudent regulation and states should seek additional regulation of IVF to support the primacy of family life for children.
Gregory J. Sullivan is a lawyer who resides in Bucks County, and he can be reached at Gregoryjsull@aol.com.
One state recognizes the compelling need for at least a minimal regulatory framework: Georgia. The proposed “Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos Act,” which was recently passed in the Georgia Senate, is an admirable start in reigning in the excesses of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Although it is a whittled-down version of an earlier and better bill, Georgia will take an important first step toward reproductive sanity by adopting this law.
Among other things, the bill prohibits the cloning of embryos for any purpose. The real controversy is found in the fact that the proposed law provides that “[t]he creation of an in vitro human embryo shall be solely for the purposes of initiating a human pregnancy by means of transfer to the uterus of a human female for the treatment of human infertility or cryopreservation for such treatment in the future.”
As the astute William Saletan in Slate pointed out, this provision “does not, as advertised, require that IVF be ‘for the purpose of creating children.’ It requires that IVF be ‘for the treatment of human infertility.’ The two phrases are not equivalent. Sometimes IVF is done to create children for couples who are technically or even clearly fertile. The bill, as written, would prohibit this.”
Mr. Saletan pushes right to the heart of the matter: “The more interesting question is what will happen to the use of IVF for creating children when there’s no question of infertility at all. That use is the screening of embryos for unwanted genes: preimplantation genetic diagnosis [PGD].”
In other words, a fertile couple uses IVF to produce a batch of embryos; those embryos are screened for desirable and undesirable genetic traits. Only the very best are implanted.
PGD was initially used to screen for childhood diseases that were fatal. Today, its use has expanded to include the identification of sex and other traits unrelated to health. Another word for PGD is eugenics. Selective breeding to improve the genetic quality of the race is what is being rejected by Georgia in its bill.
At its profoundest level, Georgia is attempting to provide at least some protection to the intrinsic worth of human beings. PGD turns human beings into a merely instrumental good — a radically different view. It is the difference between the vision of Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Singer.
IVF began as a last-resort method to help infertile couples have children. Its use has exploded well beyond this very limited purpose. This growth, moreover, has proceeded without any kind of serious moral scrutiny by most Americans. But certain restrictions, like the banning of PGD, will cause citizens to think about the truly radical implications of the revolution effected by IVF.
Those implications include allowing single women and homosexual couples to have children through IVF. (Male homosexuals purchase an egg and hire a womb to carry a baby to term.) Prohibition of this use of IVF would check this particularly irresponsible application, but also it would reinforce a notion that is ominously de-emphasized in the law: The best environment for the procreation and education of children is in a family with a mother and a father. Much of the dysfunctionality that has destroyed American cities and dangerously destabilized the rest of the country may be traced to the abandonment of this understanding.
How we reproduce ourselves, who is allowed to reproduce and who gets reproduced are large and important matters. To date, states have irresponsibly allowed these questions to answers themselves and most Americans cannot get moral traction on this complex issue. With new reproductive technologies developed in a moral void, those answers are utterly unacceptable.
Georgia has started down the road toward responsible political control of reproduction. All states ought to follow this movement, however modest, toward prudent regulation and states should seek additional regulation of IVF to support the primacy of family life for children.
Gregory J. Sullivan is a lawyer who resides in Bucks County, and he can be reached at Gregoryjsull@aol.com.
Copyright © 2010 - The Bulletin