Right to a child

Question 1

What is IVF?

Answer 1

• Sperm and eggs are fertilised in a laboratory
• Fertility drugs given to women to stimulate super-ovulation causing her to produce between ten and fourteen eggs rather than 1
• Super-ovulation means the couple can select the healthiest fertilised egg
- Reinserted into the Uterus for natural pregnancy.

Question 2

What are the uses and benefits of IVF?

Answer 2

Allows women who have damaged or diseased fallopian tubes to become pregnant (when fertilisation would otherwise not be possible via natural methods)
• Eggs and sperm are donated to single women or homosexual couples
• Can be used on women who are post-menopausal
• Can be used by women who want their dead partner’s offspring

Question 3

What is the issues with IVF?

Answer 3

1. Personhood (the morality of discarding an embryo when it is considered a person)
2. The right to life (what is done with ‘spare’ embryos?)
3. The right to a child (do we have the right to have IVF treatment?)

Question 4

What is Peter Singer’s view on IVF?

Answer 4

• Singer accepts that the decision to destroy or conduct research on an embryo may be refusing a human being the right to life, but so is the decision to have protected sex or not to have sex at all. Therefore it IVF treatment is equally moral as the use of contraception or celibacy.

Question 5

What are the two different types of Gene therapy (Genetic Engineering)

Answer 5

There are two types of cell, and therefore two types of Gene Therapy:
Somatic – cells found in the body
Germ-line – cells found in the sperm and egg (are hereditary)

Question 6

What is somatic therapy and what can it be used for?

Answer 6

This occurs when a foreign gene is introduced to help the patient recover from a disease of deformity.

Question 7

What is germ-line therapy and what can it be used for?

Answer 7

This occurs when changes are made to a gene effecting subsequent generations. Germ-Line Therapy can be used to eliminate an undesirable gene from the gene pool that will not reoccur in future generations.

Question 8

What are the issues with germ-line therapy?

Answer 8

• We do not yet know the consequences of germ-line therapy, and future generations are not able to express their opinion on something that will inevitable effect them
• The way in which the research for germ-line therapy is conducted may raise further issues for personhood and the right to life

Question 9

What are the moral issues raised by AI in terms of it being unnatural?

Answer 9

Not the way God intended people to procreate
Must not replace sex
Takes the beauty and love out of creating a child

Question 10

What are the moral issues of AI when a donor is used?

Answer 10

Attack on sanctity of marriage
Donor’s sperm can only be used a limited number of times
Donor must remain anonymous

Question 11

What are the moral issues raised for the child of AI?

Answer 11

Who are the child’s parents?
What if he wants to contact the biological father?
There may be tensions between child through AID and any previous/subsequent child

Question 12

What are the moral issues of the availability of AI?

Answer 12

Should lesbian couples be allowed to have children?
Should single women be allowed to have children?
Should people with disabilities or people over a certain age be allowed to us AI?

Question 13

What are the moral issues surrounding the cost of AI?

Answer 13

Is it appropriate to buy sperm over the internet?
Is it right to pay more to get sperm from an athletic genius?
Should AID be freely available on the NHS?

Question 14

What are the moral issues for the husband in AI?

Answer 14

Husband may feel jealous/inadequate

Husband may find it more difficult to bond with the baby

Question 15

What are the moral issue raised by IVF being unnatural?

Answer 15

If egg and/or sperm are donated, is this akin to adultery?
Will IVF replace sex?
Not the way God intended
May lead to ‘weaker’ sperm fertilising eggs

Question 16

What are the moral issues surrounding eugenics and IVF?

Answer 16

Allows pre-implantation genetic diagnosis

Allows you to choose eggs/sperm from fitter, more intelligent people

Question 17

What are the moral issues surrounding cost and IVF?

Answer 17

Only wealthy people can afford multiple attempts

Availability on the NHS means money not spent on saving lives

Question 18

What are the moral issues of the success rate in IVF?

Answer 18

Only 20% effective, costing time and money
IVF pregnancies have a lower success rate, meaning that more implanted embryos die
Can give couples false hope
Can prolong and intensify the pain of childlessness
May leave couples too old to adopt

Question 19

What are the moral issues surrounding the availability of IVF?

Answer 19

Should it be available to lesbian couples?
Under what conditions should it be available on the NHS?
Should there be age restrictions?

Question 20

What are the moral issues surrounding the rights of a child produced through IVF?

Answer 20

Should the child be told how it was born?

What ties are there with egg or sperm donors?

Question 21

What are the moral issues of spare embryos in IVF?

Answer 21

How many spare embryos should you produce?
Can spare embryos be frozen?
Can spare embryos be experimented on?
Is killing a spare embryo murder?

Question 22

What are the moral issues surrounding consent and IVF?

Answer 22

Can sperm be taken from a dead partner and used to produce a child?
What happens if an embryo is frozen and the husband changes his mind?

Question 23

What are the moral issues surrounding possible mistakes with IVF?

Answer 23

What happens if embryos get mixed up?

What happens if embryos get lost, stolen or accidentally destroyed?

Question 24

What is the issue of commercialism surrounding IVF?

Answer 24

Eggs/sperm are sold on the internet

Question 25

What are the moral issues raised with surrogacy about the sanctity of marriage?

Answer 25

Husband’s bond with the surrogate (esp. if not AI) – she’s growing his baby
Wife’s feelings – jealousy, inadequacy etc.

Question 26

What are the moral issues raised with the right of the surrogate in surrogacy?

Answer 26

Bonds with the baby - feels first kick, gives birth etc.
If not IVF, surrogate has biological ties with the child
Open to exploitation, particularly if poor or in countries where payment is greater than expenses
Can she decide whether to smoke, exercise, work, travel, eat junk etc.?
Can she decide whether to have an abortion?
If she becomes ill, what support is she entitled to?
If something happens to the couple now or in the future, what are her responsibilities?

Question 27

What are the moral issues surrounding the rights of the foetus/child in surrogacy?

Answer 27

Any payment reduces the value of a child and commercialises humanity
Do they have the right to contact the surrogate mother?
What is the child’s status if other children are born to the couple or the surrogate

Question 28

What are the moral issues surrounding the rights of the couple?

Answer 28

The law won’t enforce any contract, even in the case of IVF, so the surrogate can always keep the child
The couple are open to manipulation and blackmail
The couple have no legal right to prevent the surrogate from damaging the foetus by smoking etc, or aborting the foetus
Should gay couples be able to have children through surrogacy?

Question 29

What are the moral issues if surrogacy goes wrong?

Answer 29

Disability?
Couple split up
Couple change their minds
Surrogate can’t have another child
Surrogate decides to keep the baby
Couple have their own child
Couple become ill or die

Question 30

What are the moral issues surrounding payment in surrogacy?

Answer 30

Is ‘payment for expenses’ enough in the days of the minimum wage?
Is any exchange of money appropriate?

Question 31

What is the legality of payment for artificial means of having a child?

Answer 31

You can buy eggs and sperm over the internet, and prices go up to tens of thousands. In the UK, a surrigate mother can only have her expenses paid, but in California, childless couples may pay $50,000 for a surrogate to carry their child.
IVF in the UK costs around £5,000 per attempt, although this does vary. It is only rarely paid for by the NHS. One possibility, which raises other ethical questions, is that a woman can donate some of the eggs produced through IVF to pay for the treatment.

Question 32

What is PGD?

Answer 32

Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis is sometimes used in IVF when several embryos are produced. It involves removing a cell from an early embryo (one with 8 or 16 cells) and checking for an inherited condition. PGD could be used to check for gender or any genetic trait - however, in the UK it is only allowed to be used to check for untreatable genetic disorders.

Question 33

What was the case study of Angela Donovan?

Answer 33

Angela Donovan was born with a rare form of eye cancer, losing an eye at two weeks old. Her son spent his first two years in hospital. She has applied to the HFEA for the right to screen for the condition for their next child. Couples are allowed to screen for inherited genetic disorders, but in this case the cancer is ‘treatable’, so the Donovans have to apply for permission directly to the HFEA. The concern here is that the Donovans will be identifying embryos with the cancer and destroying them. PGD is not a form of treatment, it enables couples to avoid having children with certain disorder

Question 34

What is the Case Study of The Perry’s?

Answer 34

The Perrys have strong religious beliefs that embryos should not be frozen or discarded. All embryos, they believe, should be implanted. Helen produced a number of eggs but wasn’t able to continue with treatment, so the eggs were frozen for use in the future. Emily Perry was the first child in the UK to be born from frozen eggs.

Question 35

What is the Utilitarian view on infertility treatments?

Answer 35

Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus could be used here. His theory said that it was more important to avoid pain than bring about pleasure, so he would be concerned with the high failure rate of treatments like IVF. However, the immense pleasure of having a baby could outweigh the pain of an unsuccessful IVF treatment. They have no problems with spare embryos

Question 36

How would you find out what the right course of action would be with Kantian ethics?

Answer 36

To find out what the right thing is, kant would firstly universalise a maxim, turning it into a universal law. He would then ask whether that law was a contradiction of the wil (an imperfect duty) or a self-contradiction (a perfect duty).

Question 37

Why would Kantian ethics be against the destruction of embryos?

Answer 37

IVF involves destroying spare embryos. This is not self-contradictory - you could have a universal law that said all spare embryos are destroyed. However, it would be a contradiction of the will, because if you truly make it a universal law, it could have been you who was destroyed. It would be contrary to your will to have been destroyed as an embryo.

Question 38

What would Kantian ethics view on egg, sperm and embryo donation?

Answer 38

Sperm, egg and embryo donation (whether paid or unpaid) might not be contrary to the will. For example, in a case where one couple has IVF paid for if they donate some eggs to another couple who are infertile - we may think this is a perfectly acceptable situation. However, Kant says we should never be used ‘merely as a means to an end’. Even if donation is voluntary, a sperm or egg donor is using their own humanity as a means to an end. Kant would particularly be against the sale of sperm or eggs. Some Kantians may argue that, if they are being paid, a donor is not being used merely as a means to an end.

Question 39

Why would Natural Law be against most infertility treatments?

Answer 39

Reproduction is one of the five primary precepts of Natural Law. Put another way, one of the reasons why God made humans, according to Aquinas, was to reproduce - that was their purpose. However, although reproduction is an essential aspect of human nature, Natural Law requires that we follow deontological principles, the secondary precepts that derive from the primary precepts. Precepts such as ‘Do not kill’ are absolute - there are no exceptions. Therefore it would be wrong ro break one precept to fulfil another.

Question 40

What does Natural Law view the involvement of a third party in infertility treatments?

Answer 40

also views the involvement of a third party (such as in egg, sperm or embryo donation, as an attack on the sanctity of marriage. One primary precept is that we should live in an ordered society. If people are going around with two fathers or mothers, the structure of society is threatened.

Question 41

How would situation ethics view infertility treatments?

Answer 41

It seems very clear that in some cases, when a couple are desperate to have a child, infertility treatments can fulfil the needs, wishes and hopes of many couples. This seems very much the most loving thing.
Is it the most pragmatic thing though? If IVF only works for every fourth or fifth couple, does the benefit for the minority outweigh the heartache for the unsuccesful couples?
Situationsist would not be against destroying embryos in principle. The real consideration is whether IVF and other procedures are really in the best interests of the couples involved.

Question 42

How would Virtue ethics view infertility treatments?

Answer 42

One of Aristotle’s cardinal virtues is justice. Virtue Ethicists might argue that access to infertility treatments must be fair. They might have concerns with cases where a woman can only have IVF if she “sells” some of her eggs. Another cardinal virtue is wisdom. It could be argued that what we hope for most among the members of the HFEA is that as they consider each application for a license, as they decide about individual cases and whether to allow PGD, they act wisely. Aristotle may have agreed that childless couples who are desperate to have babies have not reached eudaimonia. The difficult question is whether a child would bring them closer to eudaimonia, or whether they need to come to terms with their childlessness.

Question 43

How would the Bible be seen as to be in favour of infertility treatments?

Answer 43

Abraham, from whom Judaism, Christianity and Islam descend, was promised numerous descendants by God. Unable to see how this was possible with Sarah, his elderly wife, he used Sarah’s handmaiden as a surrogate mother. In Genesis, God made humans and the first instruction he gave them was to ‘go forth and multiply’. Many Christians argue that, as humans were made in God’s image, we too may ‘create’, or use our God-given intellects to overcome infertility.

Question 44

How could the bible be seen as to be against infertility treatments?

Answer 44

Alternatively, there are numerous sanctity of life passages that are used to argue against the destruction of spare embryos. Likewise, any Biblical teaching on marriage, the concept of a couple being ‘one flesh’ etc, can be used against the involvement of a third party donor.

Question 45

What does the Roman Catholic True Society say about infertility treatments?

Answer 45

“The human embryo has the right to proper respect. ‘Test tube babies’ are real babies not simple embryos to be manipulated, frozen or left to die…. Human beings are not be treated as a means to an end.”

The Roman Catholic Truth Society - 1985

Question 46

What does the Modern Catholic dictionary say about infertility treatments?

Answer 46

In an address to Catholic doctors, Pope Pius XII condemned AID because a third person becoming involved in a marriage is like “mechanical adultery”: the donor fathers a child (with his sperm) yet he has no responsibility to the child; and a process that isolates the sacred act of creating life from the marriage union is a violation of the marriage union (which alone is the way to create life). However, if the marriage act is preserved, then various clinical techniques designed to help create new life are not to be condemned.”

Adapted from Modern Catholic Dictionary