In Vitro Fertilization is Murder

A first and possible final draft of an editorial for a paper I'm involved with. Prease feel free to comment.

It’s time to revisit a controversy that, like so many others, shouldn’t be. In particular, the morality of embryonic stem cell research. It’s of obvious practical use, promising many medical advances (repairing damaged or malfunctioning tissue, etc., as caused by diseases like Parkinson’s, diabetes, and other diseases), and it’s not as though our refusal to do life-saving research will stop others (e.g. the South Koreans, who have recently made great, well-publicized strides).

There are three major arguments against research using embryonic cells: first, it is unnecessary, since stem cells can be obtained from adult donors; second, we already have stem cell lines for research; third it is immoral regardless, since it entails the murder of human beings. The first claim is half true – stem cells can be obtained from adult donors, but they are substantially different from embryonic cells, and do not have the same potential to develop into any cell type given the right stimuli. Meanwhile, existing cell lines are degrading with age and their already limited usefulness will eventually come to an end, so arguments that creation of new cell lines by extracting stem cells from embryos is unnecessary are misinformed at best and disingenuous at worst.

So, the real objection is that extracting stem cells from embryos, a process which does kill any embryo involved, is the murder of innocent human beings. This is also the point where “pro-life” activists try to sow as much confusion as possible. Very few people object to in-vitro fertilization, yet for each child born via in-vitro fertilization, roughly 16 other embryos are discarded, put into storage indefinitely, donated to research, or (rarely) given to other couples. However, storage is expensive and implanting thawed embryos is relatively ineffective and often involves overcoming emotional blocks, so the vast majority of embryos are discarded. American Medical News reported in 2003 that there were probably around 400,000 stored embryos at that time, which gives us some idea of the number of embryos that must be discarded as medical waste.

Now, if one believes that embryos are human beings, deserving of most if not all rights a human being should have, then one should oppose in-vitro fertilization even more than one opposes stem cell research or abortion – each and every in-vitro fertilization means not one dead baby, but more than a dozen! This is without even mentioning the hundreds of thousands of spontaneous abortions (i.e. miscarriages) that occur every year; a quick Google search turns up no results for research to end them under normal circumstances (it’s true that people are researching, for example, the effects of pesticide exposure and incidence of spontaneous abortion). It is distressing indeed that so many deaths seem to have escaped the notice of “pro-life” activists.

The reason that in-vitro fertilization is not illegal is because destroying embryos is not morally or legally equivalent to killing a human being, and the reason that “pro-lifers” oppose embryonic stem cell research is that the same arguments used to undermine it can be used to undermine womens’ reproductive rights. In an effort to keep women from having control over their bodies, people like Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito are perfectly willing to argue that women of any age ought to have no more rights than 13 year old girls. It’s sad and unsurprising that they’d be willing to sacrifice the sick and dying as well.