IVF has been at the forefront again after Alabama’s court decision. This is indicative by Nature’s recent headline that states the following:
Is IVF at risk in the US? Scientists fear for the fertility treatment’s future
An Alabama court ruling that human embryos outside the uterus should be regarded as children has raised concerns among doctors and scientists.
Regarding this, a researcher from Stanford University replies, “The fact that IVF is so popular in the United States could protect the practice to some extent….But research using human embryos…might be an easier target for anti-abortion advocates, some of whom contend that life begins at conception and that discarding an embryo is akin to killing a child.”
In this paper I will argue that the abortion arguments of the past and their criteria used concerning personhood and human flourishing, along with their understanding of parental obligations, have had ethical implications for contemporary practices of artificial reproductive technology (ART), third-party donors, and the use of IVF in particular.
I will evaluate, for example, Judith Jarvis Thomson’s voluntarism and Mary Anne Warren’s psychological criteria regarding their concept of the human person which is accepted as foundational in academic pedagogy shaping undergraduates in every major, including nursing and pre-med students, in their understanding of personhood in this area of bioethics. These various perspectives on the ethics of abortion have implications in the area of reproductive ethics. The philosophers listed above are no longer with us, but their work continues to be used as authoritative works. These students as well as fellow Christians want to know the ethical implications for the use of IVF in ART as it relates to parental obligations along with the issue of commodification and the welfare of children.
Consider Thomson’s voluntarism, for example, as evidence for my argument. The concept of voluntarism is derived from her famous work “A Defense of Abortion” (Thomson, pp. 47-66). Here, she claims that parents do not have a unique responsibility or obligation for their child/fetus throughout the gestational period unless that they assume it (volunteer). Thus, there is no innate or intrinsic parental obligation by virtue of bringing a child into the world.
Applying this principle to IVF, the embryo may not be considered a member of the moral community and de facto “orphaned” based on the parents’ subjective will. This principle is antithetical to a Christian worldview concerning the parental vocation as found in the Commandment “Honor your Father and Mother….” (Eph. 6).
Lastly, Mary Szoch, the director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, states, “The council recognizes the value of the lives of children born as a result of the procedure…[However] millions more lives have been lost as the result of human life being made in the laboratory…Society must stop viewing these embryos as mere products.” Understanding the parental duties, obligations and the rights of all children from the moment of conception is paramount to the responsibilities of the family for the flourishing and well-being of all children.