IVF: Moral

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• IVF Moral Social Issues

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What is IVF

• In Vitro Fertilization
• IVF embryos are embryos created in a laboratory
• Test-tube babies

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Moral Issues

• Is the embryo considered a human life? Does human
  life begin
• At the conception?
• Two weeks after conception?
• Two months after conception?
• At birth?
• What determines it?

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Can embryo be human if it is still

• Mass of tissue and blood
• Not fully developed
• Is not conscious
• Not big enough
• Inside the womb

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• Dependent on the mother
• Does not look human
• Part of the womans body
• Bunch of cells
• Is not wanted.

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• What is a universal definition of what makes a
  life a human life?
• A human is a living organism with human
  chromosomes and DNA independent of time or place.

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• Is it a right or a privilege to have a child?
• The decision to give birth to a child not taken
  lightly
• Can every person be a parent?

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• Is IVF available to all people?
• The cost 12, 400.00
• Not every family can afford it, because on
  average couples need to undergo several cycles.

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More moral issues

• Creation of life in a laboratory
• Embryos can be exposed to chemicals
• Possibility of genetic disease.

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• More than just one embryo is fertilized
• - Some must be frozen and discarded
• - Can killing an embryo be justified to save
  another?

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• Fertility drugs birth of multiples
• - Risks to the mother anemia, excessive blood
  pressure
• Fetal reduction abortion of weaker babies
• Contributes to the overpopulation of the earth.

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• Destruction of embryos due to a disability -
  disabled rejected by society
• Are the disabled embryos considered less valuable
  - more right to termination?

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• Potential to genetically modify or select embryos
  creation of Designer Babies
• The creation of homogenous gene pools
• Particular sex selection.

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• Is it right for IVF technicians to select embryos
  who are perfect to transfer to the mothers
  womb?
• Discuss how a couple might react if a selected
  perfect embryo turned out to have a disability
  when born.

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Catholic view Problems with IVF

• Problems with IVF
• Separates the unitive and procreative
  characteristics of marriage
• Destruction of unused embryos - ending of human
  life.
• Human life has great value and it cannot be used
  as means to an end.

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• In his 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life, Pope
  John Paul II wrote
• "Human embryos obtained in vitro are human beings
  and are subjects with rights their dignity and
  right to life must be respected from the first
  moment of their existence. It is immoral to
  produce human embryos destined to be exploited as
  disposable 'biological material'" (1,5).

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Bibliography

• Partially created by By Lucy Foskett
• Allen, Kerrie IVF and embryonic stem cell
  research the social and ethical issues 2005
• lthttp//www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2005/may2005p12
  _1931.htmlgt (07/10/07)
• Malpani, Dr. Aniruddha The Social Ethical
  Issues - Right or Wrong? http//drmalpani.com/boo
  k/chapter46.html (07/10/07)
• Goldworth, Amnon. The ethics of Invitro
  Fertilization.