Moral Dilemma of Artificial Insemination: What to do with “Leftover” Embryos?

1. Xinavera
   October 7th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

   Congratulations! You now have a couple dozen beautiful children courtesy of IVF! In for a penny, in for a pound, people.

2. Neatoramawontsendmeapassword
   October 7th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

   If they’re so worried about all these precious little “lives”, then perhaps IVF wasn’t the best route for them.

   They could donate them to science and perhaps save the lives of other children down the road. Oops… but that’s evil and murderous, isn’t it?

   Oh, well. I guess they’ll just have to find surrogate mothers for all 500,000 of these embryos.

3. Bob Smythe
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

   Start a new delicacy trend, like caviar or roe. The Chinese and Japanese will go for it.

   Human caviar! YUM.

4. Peeves
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

   They’ll get over it. Funny how they didn’t predict and deal with this ahead of time..I’m assuming every step of this was painstakingly slow.

5. Tracy
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

   I worked at a fertility center for 4 years before I quit. People are so desperate for just one child they can’t see anything other than that goal. Once they had their kid they just didn’t care anymore.

6. Adamv
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

   Probably one of the many reasons why some consider it gravely immoral to begin with.

7. Bonnie L.
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

   Isn’t there an option to donate your embryos to other couples? Wouldn’t that be the same as giving your child up for adoption?

8. amy mac
   October 7th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

   the embryos could be used for stem cell research to potentially help people with severe and debilitatng spinal injuries to regain function or even to walk again… if laws would allow it. that’s the dopey situation there is at the moment - because of people claiming it is ‘immoral’ to use embryos for science and research these embryos instead get thrown out. the potential to change someone living’s life is thrown away because these embryos represent the potential for human life, even though that potential will never be realised. instead of being part of something lifechanging & wonderful, they are thrown in the bin. muuuuch better!

9. su.wei
   October 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

   haha i totally agree with Neatoramawontsendmeapassword.

   Do these people not even realize that the doctors didnt just implant one embryo?? They usually implant 5-7 viable embryos. So was it OK for them to sacrifice those, but its wrong to use the frozen ones to help thousands of sick/hurt people?

10. DOJ
    October 7th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    @su.wei - my thoughts exactly

11. red
    October 7th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    I think I’d go through the same moral dilemma at first, but ultimately tell them to just toss it. Considering how much of it goes down the drain every day world wide, it’s not that huge of a stretch for me mentally and morally.

12. Xinavera
    October 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

    If it’s immoral for you to play god by practicing selective abortion and discarding hundreds of embryos, perhaps it was immoral to play god in the first place by having IVF. The inconsistency is impressive.

13. drbeth
    October 7th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    There are organizations (Nightlight Christian Adoptions, Embryos Alive) that allow couples to officially adopt “unusued” embryos. They are implanted via IVF in the womb of the adopting woman and are considered the legal child of the adoptive parents.

14. Sasha S.
    October 7th, 2008 at 5:31 pm

    Can’t they just flush them like the icky white bits you get when you’re making an omelet? It’s the same thing really

15. Joshua Cole
    October 7th, 2008 at 5:51 pm

    Um… people… correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the human female body cleanse itself of the unused egg cell once a month?

    Or are all those menstrating women out there baby killers now?

    I don’t have this debate when I finish myself off to XXX porn into a towel.

    People think too much.

16. ted
    October 7th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

    I was thinking sushi for some reason.

    Are they viable embryos? Cause that’s cool. They could send them off to colonize Mars.

17. Senior Taco
    October 7th, 2008 at 9:36 pm

    I say we get Bristol Palin to carry them. She seems to be willing to carry anyones baby and her mother makes her do it so………

18. Johnny Cat
    October 7th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    As someone who decided early on to abandon my own capabilities of reproduction (vasectomy), and focus on the prospects of adopting real live children who need parents, I have a real problem with IVF. Especially when this kind of waste becomes evident.

19. su.wei
    October 8th, 2008 at 1:52 am

    oh i dont think there’s anything wrong with IVF…it’s not “playing god”, just aiding reproduction lol

20. Pol x
    October 8th, 2008 at 5:30 am

    Once again I am amazed to find myself agreeing with ted.

    MARS IT IS!!

    good call there ted.

21. Anon
    October 8th, 2008 at 8:11 am

    They had to think about it long before there were “leftovers”. I’ve been through ivf, not lucky enough to have “leftovers” because my situation was pretty dire to start with. However, before we started the whole thing, we signed about a dozen different releases, including a several-page notarized document about what to do with any extra embryos. Our choices were freezing, discarding or donating to science. The form was very thorough, including what happens if one partner dies, if we’re divorced, if someone remarries, etc. So I assure you, these people weren’t surprised with sudden leftover embryos.

22. sparge
    October 8th, 2008 at 9:04 am

    Joshua Cole - true, but those eggs haven’t been fertilized.

23. Thomas
    October 8th, 2008 at 10:58 am

    Ahh, but many eggs are fertilized naturally, but never implant. If your argument is “God did it, so its okay,” then never mind.

24. Xopl
    October 8th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

    There is not a single sane human who would save a burning bus full of a million frozen embryos instead of a burning bus full of six-year-old kids.

    Accept that embryos and children are not valued equally.

    Moreover, how about we focus less on unborn embryos and more on the quality of life that our not-frozen, already out of the womb, CHILDREN will have going into the future.

    There are serious problems with education, health care, the environment, and the economy we need to deal with which are way, way more important than if some embryos get a shot at life.

    We can make more embryos, people. We’re mighty good at it. If it was hard, we wouldn’t have six billion people on the planet.

25. Xinavera
    October 8th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    Ever notice how none of the protesters outside abortion clinics has double baby strollers with a pair of adopted kids in them? Put your money where your mouth is before you deign to lecture me about morality.

26. AnUnSi
    October 9th, 2008 at 10:40 pm

    The sheer ignorance of so many of the commenters above is truly astonishing — and worrying, since they have (or will have) the right to vote. The following are FACTS and not opinions:

    1. An human embryo is a human being, a person with exactly the same inalienable rights (including the right to life) as any commenter who posted above. This is true from conception (which is correctly defined as the completion of fertilization of an ovum by a sperm — not as the implantation of an embryo in a woman’s uterus). A human embryo is not not a member of a lower “caste” of person, subject to nazi-like manipulation.

    2. No one can experiment on any human being without his/her expressed consent.

    3. No human being can give consent to an experiment that will surely kill him/herself or another.

    4. Embryonic stem cell research kills an innocent, defenseless embryonic human being (who has not, cannot, and may not give consent for it), and it is thus unjustifiable homicide.

    5. There is no such thing as a “spare” human embryo, just as there is no such thing as a “spare” infant, toddler, teenager, adult, or oldster. Each embryo has the right to a full life, not to being slaughtered. We must all reject the long-ago discredited, anti-human philosophical school called “Utilitarianism,” wherein one human being can be USED (actually ABUSED) for the seeming benefit of another or of society.

    6. Each human embryo has the right to be born to a married mother and father who have brought the embryo into existence only through normal intercourse.

    7. While married men and women may not be deprived by the state of their right to intercourse or to engender as many children as they can responsibly rear, they do not have a right to bring about the conception of a child by any scientifically possible means (e.g., IVF). The state can give them a freedom/liberty, but not a right, since rights come only from the Creator (as the Declaration of Independence tells us).

    8. Practically speaking — even if embryonic stem cell research were ethical (i.e., non-murderous) — people need to know that it has TOTALLY failed anyway, for years and years, and (I hope) may always fail.

    9. By contrast, all other forms of stem cell research — which are NOT murderous and NOT unethical — for example, mature stem cell research involving cells taken from born humans, their placentas, or their umbilical cords — have resulted in the curing of an ever-increasing number of disorders/paralyses/etc. (more than 70 at this point).

    10. 90% of the media, being godless, ultra-left-wing, pro-death ideologues hide points 8 and 9 from the public, in order to push for more and more murderous, utilitarian, embryonic stem cell research.

    Dear God in heaven, please help the readers of Neatorama to LEARN facts and to respect human life.

27. AnUnSi
    October 9th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    Oh, isn’t that just sweet! Here comes “Big Brother” to censor (or delete) what I wrote, because He doesn’t want the whole truth to be known. Just pathetic and truly demonic!

28. smak
    October 10th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Hey AnUnSi, so which would you save from a burning building — if you were only able to save one:

    1) A tray of 100 fertilized embryos.
    2) Two 5th graders.

29. ted
    October 11th, 2008 at 10:17 am

    lol @ AnUnSi. You never fail to entertain. You must have said something the automated screener thought was offensive.

    Your one statement defies your other statements.

    6. Each human embryo has the right to be born to a married mother and father who have brought the embryo into existence only through normal intercourse.

    These embryos have not been brought into existence through normal intercourse. According to your logic, they are demon seed, and ought to be destroyed.

    What is “married”, anyways, AnUnSi? Are Hindus and Moslems married? Are Protestants married? Are people who are married in a civil ceremony truly “married”?

    I think my idea was pretty good, but you didn’t comment on it - why not send these babies to Mars?

30. ted
    October 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    I had another idea.

    They could be sold to homosexual couples - married ones, of course - none of that evil “living in sin” lifestyle for these babies.

    Which would be better in your opinion, AnUnSi, to terminate the babies, or to have them raised by homosexuals?

31. JRO
    December 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am

    I had a very religious friend who did this, and for her, it wasn’t wrong to destroy the rest of the embryos, because they had only 2 cells each. I suppose anybody faced with probably get over it…or keep them frozen forever?

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