The ability now exists in a small way, and will probably increase significantly over time, for IVF doctors to select embryos based on the presence or absence of certain genes — ie. to select for genetic criteria.
This is being compared by some to the ‘eugenics’ movement of the early 20th Century.
Based on the crude philosophies of Darwinism (not to be confused with Darwin’s scientific theories which are a different thing altogether),
this profoundly misguided medical movement proposed that
it was Man’s right role to weed out the genetically unfit.
In the West, and the USA in particular, forced sterilisations
were performed on women who were
considered genetically unworthy — usually because they were poor, of low intelligence, or had been sentenced to prison — a horrible crime perpetrated against these women, and a dark chapter in medical science.
Subsequently, Eugenics was enthusiastically adopted by the Nazis
who went one step further and began murdering the sick, the retarded, those with Down Syndrome, the mentally ill, as well some homosexuals (homosexuality was considered a mental illness in those days). As with all evil,
having once embraced it,
it was a short logical step for the cultured people
of Germany to become the perpetrators of the most monstrous crime in all history, the attempted extermination of the entire Jewish race.
The history of the Eugenics movement thus raises a huge range of questions, and casts a dark shadow not just on Darwinism but upon all of Secular Rationalism.
It also serves as a warning against giving too much power to welfare bureaucrats, as these were the people behind the selection of women to be sterilised.
And it quite rightly means that whenever anyone suggests undertaking genetic selection in any medical or social context, sensible people become concerned. This was the case when insurance companies suggested requiring their customers to pass genetic tests, and it is the case now that IVF doctors propose testing embryos for genetic conditions before implanting them.
I am troubled by selection of embryos for specific genetic characteristics, although I don’t reject the idea outright. It depends on the severity of the condition. Doctors have already begun selecting embryos of women who have difficulty carrying a pregancy to term due to miscarriage, with much success. This seems an ethically acceptable decision to me, as that human life would die anyway (the principle of triage).
Much more troubling is the selective abortion of certain unborn babies, for example if they have Down Syndrome. In my opinion this is wrong in almost all cases. Although, like many things that are wrong, it may be impossible to legislate against it.
And if genetic selection of IVF embryos were to become based on more trivial genetic factors (for example intelligence or eye colour), I think most people would be appalled. At its best this would mean treating humans like livestock, and at its worst, to be seeking ‘God-like powers’ to control human evolution.
There are other aspects of IVF that some lead some Christians
to regard the whole field as morally wrong.
The most usual objection is that destruction of human life — particularly innocent life — is wrong in all cases. In other words, it is wrong during abortion and so it must be wrong during IVF.
This is a reasonable objection, but I don’t believe on closer examination it is justified.
Yes, most embryos will fail to implant and will die, as do many or most naturally conceived embryos, some others will be frozen, and if not used will eventually cease to be viable, at which point they are thawed, and die.
Is this murder, or is it like switching off life support
for a patient who will never recover, or neither, or both? People of Faith and good faith can ponder this question.
However, the idea that vast numbers of unused embryos need to be wantonly destroyed during IVF is not true. Almost all those that die, will do so in the process of trying to give them a life.
Once pregnancy is acheived, not every couple will even have left over embryos, and for those who eventually do, usually by this time many more than this viable embryos have been implanted. The number unused will typically be quite small.
In our own case, four ova were harvested, two of these successfully developed into embryos, both were implanted, and we were blessed with non-identical twins. What could be more life-affirming?
Furthermore, there have been moves recently (for example by President Bush) to promote
the adoption of unused embryos, which is a good response to a valid ethical quandry, as well as an act of great kindness for infertile men and women who cannot produce embryos at all.
Note, too,
the broader ethical questions that arise once a medical treatment becomes available.
Deliberately withholding medical care from someone, who subsequently dies when they would have been expected to live had they been treated, is considered homocide.
Could it not be argued that
withholding fertility treatment from someone, who remain childless when they could reasonably have been expected to have children with treatment, is equivalent to sterilisation?
Getting back to the Eugenics movements, are there not
similarities between condemning women to sterility who could readily be treated by modern medicine — for philosophical reasons — and the sterilisation of ‘undesirable’ women by the 20th Century Eugenicists — also for philosophical reasons.
In fact, I find blanket opposition to IVF to be a very strange sort of way to sanctify life — since it denies it.
Finally, there is an
argument often used against IVF — particularly when it was a very new treatment, but which I believe is still the official position of the Catholic Church — that it is wrong simply because it is
unnatural.
It’s wonderful to sanctify natural human reproduction and relationships — the proper name for marriage is ‘Holy Matrimony’, after all — and I fully support the principle that children belong in families of a mother and father who share physical, emotional and spiritual bonds, and who have demonstrated their commitment to each other by making a binding contract of legal, spiritual and physical union,
but to extend this principle
so far that it results in the enforced barrenness of a proportion of these married couples is
wrong.
It is applying the principle in a manner which could not be foreseen when the principle was laid down.
It is adhering to the letter of the law but ignoring its spirit.
In fact it reminds me strongly of the objections of the Pharisees when Christ healed on the Sabbath. Religious rules are a fine thing, but Jesus teaches us that sometimes we must follow a higher law. Just as Christ taught that healing ruined bodies superceded religious rules designed to protect the sanctity of the Sabbath, likewise
healing couples so they can bring new life into the world — and life is the greatest thing any of us can give the world — must surely supercede
religious rules put in place to protect the sanctity of the sexual act.
Furthermore, to some degree it can be seen as a variation on
the argument that
because things are a particular way, therefore it must be God’s will they should remain thus.
I totally reject this simplistic point of view. In fact I find it not at all Christian,
more fitting in fact to a fatalistic heathen religion. As Christians, don’t we accept that Satan has marred the world, and we are under instruction to ’subdue’ it — to use our abilities to do God’s work on earth? Where would we be otherwise?
On balance, there are some grave ethical questions are raised by infertility treatment — as indeed they are by very many areas of medicine and technology — but like most of the ills of modern life they are not central to the process. They can be ameliorated without robbing good women of the opportunity to be good mothers.