Applications of ideas around consent to human reproduction are confusing and self-contradictory at the best of times.
Which is ethically fine by me! I'm just pointing out that reproduction is one of the areas where the limitations of consent based bioethics are blindingly obvious.
The genes in sperm are physically different than those in eggs. It's called methylation and I gave you an example of a disease caused by it going wrong.
At some point you're going to want this if you're trying to pick specific genes from people or if you're doing things like making people with dozens of parents.
The genetic mix from parents is randomized. Always. Both good and bad results are equally the result of a random process initiated by the parents. A combination of recessive genes to cause disease is not more or less random than a combination of healthy genes. The parents roll the dice, the child gets the result.
In other words: The ethics can't proceed from first principles around consent to experimentation. It has to include, as you say, empirical questions about the technology in question. But that's a different sub-thread.
If I had to say anything about that: I think this is one of those things that is just going to happen whether or not anyone likes it. The fact that it has already succeeded with mice + the massive applications... it's just going to get tried, it's just a matter of which country it happens in. The fact that it could potentially be used by same sex couples is a total side note to how strongly this will be pulled along by the same existing demands that drive IVF currently, the potential is just too powerful. So I imagine we're just going to see eventually.
As someone who has a family because of IVF, I am very thankful that researchers were allowed to roll the dice on that one, and see that it turned out well.
Also, this is not a question of precaution, but a known objectively gravely immoral act. There is no risk here that we might be doing something wrong using IVF. We know with certainty that IVF is gravely immoral. That we may have obtained some outcome that is desirable does not justify the illicit means. That is, applied to your case, while it is not wrong for your family to exist per se, the means by which they were brought into existence was definitely illicit.
Why?
Sorry but... what? What about that is immoral, or... even questionable?
Can you expand? Are you making the claim that normal ivf is either immoral or illicit? Based on religious grounds, or actual discussable morality?
There are many ethical discussions to be had about research and potential genetic manipulation, but I'm not aware of any general "we" that believes IVF is immoral, other than orthodoxly religious. I'm eager to be enlightened otherwise!
Who would those be?
More generally - It's rare to see a truly and honestly non-religious opposition to reproductive aids, so I'd be genuinely eager to hear more!
Questionable lifestyles with all their ill health implications would be a close second.
I don't know that I could give you dozens of distinct reasons, but I bet I could fill out a top 5 pretty easy.
> and what/who gets to evaluate or define a "true need"?
Let's be objective here. If, through no fault of your own, you are sterile and childless and if technology makes it possible to effectively reverse that, then though it may not be ideal it is acceptable. Though far too late for the victims, those who were forcibly sterilized decades ago would have qualifed. Someone with some congenital issue maybe. Possibly those who have suffered peculiar accidents (more likely for men than women?).
> It's rare to see a truly and honestly non-religious opposition to reproductive aids,
If we're talking about people I care about, relatives of mine or not, I would want those children to have a true and genuine human experience. "Mommy couldn't bother to get around to making you before her ovaries shriveled up, and so Dr. Frankenbaby cooked you up in a test tube and gestated you inside GMO-gestation livestock" isn't that.
The only thing that gives me pause is that, generally speaking, I don't care about any of you. This will make it easier to think of the vast bulk of humanity as things, rather than people.
> If, through no fault of your own, you are sterile and childless and if technology makes it possible to effectively reverse that
In the modern Western economy, it's pretty easy to find oneself not financially able to sustain a family until one is in one's early forties. I'd say people "waiting too long" are meeting your criteria.
> I would want those children to have a true and genuine human experience. "Mommy couldn't bother to get around to making you before her ovaries shriveled up, and so Dr. Frankenbaby cooked you up in a test tube and gestated you inside GMO-gestation livestock" isn't that.
For what it's worth... I gestated a bit too long and wouldn't biologically come out. Nearly died. Was "from my mother's womb untimely ripp'd," as the Bard might put it. Me and about 32% of other American births.
None of this bothers me, of course, because I don't remember any of it. I don't have any memories until about the time I was verbal. So my lack of having the true and genuine human experience of passing through a vagina into a waiting nurse or OB-GYN's arms hasn't really been, you know... An issue. For me or the other 32% of living Americans.
I'd counsel against putting hard limits on what makes for "a true and genuine human experience." This deeply unnatural technology of the Caesarean section has allowed me and millions of others a chance at life, as well as decreasing the maternal death rate drastically. If gestation in whatever a "GMO-gestation livestock" is provided even more people a chance at life... Who cares?
Such limits are also a good way to miss the awesome breadth of what the human experience is. It's a pretty wide thing. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
In Africa, there's someone who lives on $10/month. It's not stopping them. When you talk about "being financially able to sustain a family", I get the impression you're talking about getting a purebred dog with a pedigree, because you want a pet but it can't be just any... "has to be perfect".
> So my lack of having the true and genuine human experience of passing through a vagina
No one cares about that, least of all I.
If you think it's comparable to what some people dream of though, well, I don't know what to say. Be grateful for your lack of imagination and its protective properties to the manmade horrors beyond comprehension heading our way.
Very true. How far does $10 a month go in the United States?
> No one cares about that, least of all I.
Not true. There are still people who consider cesarean section to be unnatural birth. There are still people who consider IVF to be unnatural birth. And I don't doubt that whatever "horrors" come our way, there will be people who consider being born that way an unnatural way of being until every third person they meet came into the world that way.
The whole point of the article is that they are working on a technology that might obviate that particular concern.
> Questionable lifestyles with all their ill health implications would be a close second.
What does this mean? I can see an argument for wanting people to be around for their kids to grow up, but there are many risky or unhealthy behaviors that don’t harm your ability to have kids. I don’t see any particular reason to assume that having kids earlier will lead to better health outcomes (I mean there are obvious alternatives we can imagine; someone could get an advanced degree, which is correlated to a longer lifespan).
My whole point is that if you're saying "sure, you made poor life decisions, your ovaries shriveled up" but we can cook up a Frankenbaby for you, then maybe this isn't the solution to a problem, but a problem compounding on itself.
> What does this mean? I
I don't know how much more plainly I can put it. There are any number of chronic health conditions that lead to reduced fertility, those that are either caused by poor decisions, or exacerbated by them.
> but there are many risky or unhealthy behaviors that don’t harm your ability to have kids.
They might not make you 100% infertile, but they tick up whatever number you're at by some fraction of a percentage.
> I don’t see any particular reason to assume that having kids earlier will lead to better health outcomes
Having better health can make having them naturally a little more probable.
Are you certain you're an atheist?
I've seen very few (not zero but close) non-religious ethical systemic discussions against reproductive aids. As I said in another comment though,I'm eager to learn!
Which seems weird and judgmental, but it doesn’t necessarily have to come from a religious place.
It is hard to speculate about people’s beliefs without putting words in their mouth. But generally people can use all sorts of things (evolutionary biology, economics, whatever) to justify themselves.
1. There is no god nor gods.
2. Jesus Christ was not a historical person, but wholly fabricated.
3. I could not find it within myself to lie about these truths, even if it forfeited my life. I would struggle to lie about it even if it forfeited the lives of loved ones.
4. Should I somehow be wrong on any of these points, then a deity that would torture me for eternity for the intellectual mistake of disbelief is in fact a devil and is my enemy which I would have wished I was clever enough to have recognized, so that I could wage war against it.
How atheist are you?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/23/annegret-rauni...
At 65 the woman wanted more kids even though she had already had 13 before those 4 if i understood the article correctly. As far as i understand german doctors would not let her do an IVF but in ukraine she found a doctor. It seems they went above and beyond the usual numbers of embryos to guarantee she would get pregnant.
"We know with certainty that IVF is gravely immoral." is essentially "I know I'm 100% right and everyone who disagrees is wrong."
Seriously, why even bother engaging with people like that who have made it exceedingly clear they are uninterested in listening. In the words of the always incisive Barney Frank, "I'd rather have a debate with a dining room table."
Otherwise, what is immoral about a couple using their own sperm and egg to conceive a child that they otherwise would not have had? I suppose you could say there are many children who need to be adopted, but that reasoning also applies to the decision to have children without IVF.
Alternatively, an interpretation of Aristotelianism and Platonism. There's this weird presumption that religious people mainly use texts, despite the fact that the largest denomination of the largest religion in the world, Catholicism, often ignores texts when even considering many modern moral qualms. There seems to be a real desire to reduce modern religions to some kind of magic cult, despite the fact that a lot of modern religions give great weight to secular philosophy.
In particular, the Catholic objection to IVF is rooted chiefly in Aristotle's concept of the telos, which is pretty secular. Any text in the Bible that goes along with that is just icing on the cake, not really the main objection.
Basically... The telos of sex is reproduction. To separate reproduction from sex renders sex meaningless, and thus irrational from an aristotelian perspective.
The typical objection is that sex is also for pleasure. However, Aristotle considers base pleasures like sex not worth pursuing.
Now another typical objection here is that this could mean that ivf should be pursued while we don't have sex. This is I suppose where some religion may come in since Christianity typically sees sex within marriage as a good to be pursued. Nevertheless, I've not heard any modern argument that says we should eliminate sex and sexual desire and pursue only ivf.
So basically, separating sex from reproduction renders sex meaningless and irrational.
The actual reason religious people are mad at IVF is undefensible in somewhat secular society -- i.e. creating life is domain of god, thus fertilizing those embryos in the first place is bad. But with IVF there is a straw to hang on -- it's never just one egg, it's one (or two) eggs used and the rest discarded after fertilization. Which you can kinda defend as murder.
That is very much a religious idea and not something universally held. I certainly don't believe a jar of fertilized embryos is deserving of any special respect.
But it's the only clean line they can draw about when human life becomes human life, so they nominally stick to it even though they don't hold by any of the logical consequences of doing so.
"Which is of course bad" - all these people thinking their personal opinions are universal, unwavering truths...
> That is very much a religious idea and not something universally held.
How so? From an entirely secular standpoint, it's the moment a distinct individual life starts (e.g. viable new organism with its own unique DNA).
> I certainly don't believe a jar of fertilized embryos is deserving of any special respect.
And that's supposed to prove what? Someone else might believe a child who has not yet met some arbitrary developmental milestone as not deserving of any special respect. And that's not hypothetical, infanticide has been common in many cultures up to and including recent times.