“Mom???”
At the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Madrid, it was revealed that researchers from Israel and the Netherlands have kept ovarian tissue from aborted fetuses alive in the laboratory for several weeks.The chief researcher in the project, Dr. Tal Biron-Shental, said it was “theoretically possible” that with extra hormone treatment they could have produced mature eggs suitable for use in in vitro fertilization. Female fetuses develop ovaries after as little as 16 weeks in the womb, and harvesting eggs from them could be a boon for infertile couples.
But horrors…
Dr Tom Shakespeare, director of the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute at Newcastle University, told the Daily Mail that he was “deeply uneasy'”about the idea of using aborted fetuses as a source of eggs, saying, “My personal view is that it is wrong. Partly because it would cause widespread revulsion and partly because you would have somebody born who is the child of someone who never lived. We need to consider the welfare of the child and the impact of finding out that your mother was aborted.”
If there is a better illustration of mixing up the “Ick Factor” with ethics, I haven’t seen it. The fact that something “causes widespread revulsion” alone doesn’t mean it’s wrong in any way. All it may mean is that the practice is strange and unexpected. Among the ideas that have caused “widespread revulsion”—black citizenship, female voting, the income tax, same sex marriage, mixed race marriages, pre-marital sex, trade unions, welfare, baby incubators, criticism of Barack Obama,the Affordable Care Act….and in vitro fertilization itself. The presence or absence of revulsion is not an ethics test. There must be actual harm, and in that category—what is inherently harmful about being born from genetic material originating from a fetus?—there is nothing there. Adopted children routinely cope with far more disturbing realities about their parents than this. I would rather be the son of an unborn child than of a criminal, a prostitute, a rape victim, or simply a mother who didn’t want me. Do you know what is clearly worse than being created from an embryonic egg? Not being created at all.
Aborting fetuses for the purpose of harvesting eggs is a different and more difficult issue, but also not the one at hand. As with cloning, this is a technology that might be used unethically, but the technology itself is not unethical. The Daily Mail, restrained as always, says that harvesting eggs from embryos raises “the nightmare prospect of a child whose biological mother has never been born.” This is no more of a “nightmare” than stem cell treatment, and like that much maligned technology, the “nightmare” is fear of the new, not ethics.
___________________________
Pointer: Jessica Trottier (Thanks!)
Facts: The Daily Mail
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
What do you think is the difference between an unethical technology and a technology that is not unethical but can be used unethically? Are there some technologies that are so predominantly used for their unethical purpose that the technology itself becomes unethical? I ask because I truly do not know where to draw the line.
An unethical technology is one that can have no legitimate ethical purpose. There aren’t many of those—biological warfare, perhaps? Everything else needs to regulated to ensure that it isn’t used unethically, with “ethically’ being objectively and rationally considered, but if a technology has a beneficial use, then it can’t be labelled “unethical.”
“…if a technology has a beneficial use, then it can’t be labeled ‘unethical.’ ”
Jack, isn’t there an opening inherent in that for the rationalization, “If only one person benefits from the technology, then it is worth pursuing”? Isn’t a sinister, anti-ethical angle to that rationalization possible?
I am not trying to say that pursuit of technology for using ovarian tissue of deceased fetal persons should be avoided or, er, aborted. I am just suggesting the possibility that as our technologies advance, the possibility of a particular technology being advantageous to only one person, and at the expense of all others, cannot be dismissed.
Sure, only one person is the reductio ad absurdum…but can you think of any such technology, or anyone so unique that a technology benefiting him would not help anyone else? In the Jurassic Park example, it isn’t cloning dinosaurs that’s unethical, but doing so without having the ability to store the dinosaurs safely. Somewhere in my archives is the weird story of the parents who had their paralyzed daughter operated on in childhood so she would never grow or mature, so she could be transported more easily. She had her breasts and gentials removed, and her growth permanently stopped at at he level of toddler. Now that methodology would be horrible and monstrous in any other situation, but it is arguably ethical, and a boon, in this one case. I’d say it is still ethical, limited in that way.
I am imagining generally a technology that *could* benefit someone (or many someones) besides the one person who possesses it, but that the possessor chooses to keep to himself because of the power it gives him over all others. Call it “Godtech” or, say, a Kryptonite-like substance, “LexLuthorium.” I cannot think of a specific example, but that is just my limited imagination.
That case of the paralyzed daughter is disturbing. A form of Murphy’s Law says that the technology for healing most forms of paralysis has been delayed because of someone who could’ve developed it, but who was aborted. A corollary is that eventually, abortions will result in the best source of tissues necessary for healing many forms of paralysis.
How would this be an ethical boon? Do we do this to all quadriplegics?
Should this have been done to Stephen Hawking? Or Rick Hoyt? Or Christopher Reeve?
OK, quiz: How are Hawking, Hoyt and Reeve not comparable? Even slightly? (It would not be applicable in any of their cases, which is why I cited it as unique. I’m not crazy about what the parents did, but it was arguably ethical.
There is no difference, period.
I pretty much agree with you. Of course, under this definition, the only thing separating an unethical technology from an ethical technology is imagination.
Very true. And a playing card can be a deadly weapon…
That brings a new meaning to the phrase “dead man’s hand”.
There’s a debate going on about building a casino near me. I should point out the danger of playing cards as one of the reasons why the casino should not be built.
Theres nothing unethical about biological weapons. Its how they are used that can be unethical. They are highly ineffective against trained discipline troops but when used against civilians you are basically commiting mass murder.
I’d apply an absolute ban on them as inherently evil—dangerous to research, impossible to control, inevitably deadly to non-combatants.
I see similar problems here as I do embryonic stem cell testing and therapy. Can we make it work? Sure. Will it be a good path to follow? Heavens, no. Even assuming it can be determined that these eggs could be found ‘superior’ to the eggs of, say, a mature and informed donor, it would STILL be a bad path.
Set the age of the donor aside. We have a young woman whose parents have paid to have her murdered. Bad enough that society allows them to do it – but now someone seeks permission to harvest the eggs from this young woman’s corpse. Will the parents be compensated at all? I shudder to think so.
These victims are too young to give any informed consent. Ah, but they are so young – their parents can consent for them. Except that their parents have already demonstrated that their own self-interest superceeds that of the infant’s – they have already elected to kill the person rather than allow it to inconveinece them – what possible reason could they have to preserve the chance of creating life from the life they elected to take?
Perhaps the doctors could give consent – it’s such a shame to let good tissue go to waste, after all. That is, of course, assuming that people are no more than tissue to be collected and redistributed at other’s will. Not sure about you, but that certainly looks and sounds like a future to be avoided to me. The last thing our society needs is another opportunity to rationalize ‘this good can come from the child being aborted, so abortion is therefore ok.’ Which you know as well as I do quickly becomes ‘you oppose abortion, so you oppose this good that comes from it! Where will we get our eggs/stem cells if we’re not allowed to abort children?’
There’s another option – give birth to the baby, and then the person wishing in vitro can simply adopt the child. Presto – same result, only no one need be murdered in order to achieve it. The eggs will not need to be ‘kept alive’ – the young woman in question will accomplish that on her own, and be free to choose what she wishes to do with them herself, in due time.
“Do you know what is clearly worse than being created from an embryonic egg? Not being created at all.” Or being created and subsequently destroyed, only to have your corpse looted so that another may be offered the opportunity to live you were so violently denied.
You’re mixing up abortion with the conduct here. Harvesting or not harvesting the eggs of an aborted fetus has nothing to do with the abortion itself. Indeed at worst it extracts some good out of injustice. Do you feel that it is unethical to use organs harvested from a murder victim to save someone’s life, as opposed to a donor who dies naturally? Presumably not (since that would make no sense.). I see no difference between that and taking the eggs of an aborted fetus. as for consent—consent is a legal construct that the law requires of adults. Children can have consent conferred by parents, and fetuses don’t have individual rights.
If the abortion is not an issue, would it be as ethical to harvest the eggs from the children if they were not aborted, and then went on to be born?
Couple A does not wish to raise a child. Couple B does. How is a solution featuring the death of an innocent not automatically inferior to a solution that has the same results, but without the needless death?
If the murder victim had not made their wishes to be a donor known before the murder, yes, it would be unethical.
Currently, legally, fetuses do not have individual rights, it is true. But is there no ethical variant of the legal notion of consent? Respect, autonomy, dignity, decency?
As it is, I’m afraid I hear shades of Marion Barry, compliance, and consequentialism in your arguments. Please correct me if you think I’m wrong.
The comparable situation is not eggs from born children. It’s eggs from accidentally miscarried fetuses.
Looking forward, this technology could eventually be it’s own undoing, or mean the end of abortion.
Stick with me.
What do you put on the birth certificate of the in-vitro child whose “mother” was an aborted female fetus?
Either the aborted fetus has a name and an identity or it does not. Simply pretending that the “mother” didn’t exist isn’t really an option when doing so contradicts the very real, tangible evidence of a child with DNA that came from . . . where? That child will eventually have genuine questions about family medical history concerning genetic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, alcoholism, etc. etc. etc.
This inescapably leads to the necessity of granting some sort of minimal legal status for the “mother” that acknowledges her existence. And that existence will have to have something like a name, as a way of distinguishing this “mother” from that one.
From minimal legal status, it’s a short walk to a societal re-evaluation of whether the aborted “mother” really was human or not. At that point, we have a crossroads.
If the “mother” fetus is human, then abortion is murder.
If the “mother” fetus is not a human, then she cannot be granted legal status, and the USE of the harvested eggs (though not necessarily the harvesting itself) cannot be allowed to continue.
–Dwayne
P.S. Could an analogous technique for harvesting sperm cells from a male fetus be developed? Does the child of two non-existent parents really exist?
Yes, the child really would exist. The issues everyone seems to fixate on are in paperwork and semantics. If there is a living, breathing child in front of you, they exist. The government would just have to adjust the paperwork.
As for the child, I don’t see they will have any more of a problem understanding this than the child of two lesbians or two gay men or from a surrogate mother, or any other non-traditional families that currently exist. What is harder to understand and process, “Well, the egg that you came from is from your mom Suzy, and we had it implanted in your mom Brenda, so you would be from both moms, and the sperm likely came from some poor college student, but we made sure he was tall and had good teeth” or “we got the egg from a lab that collects them from aborted fetuses because your mom’s weren’t working and they were fertilized with your dad’s sperm and implanted for your mom to carry”.
How is this worse than the current (not uncommon) scenario “your parents took you to an abortion clinic, but the clinic thought you were a week too far along and refused”?
Fascinating thought – a woman gets pregnant. She doesn’t want to be pregnant. The child is a ‘fetus,’ and not a human being – if it were a human being, it would be unethical to kill it. But the fetus’ eggs are sold and implanted. A child is born. But that child’s genetic mother was not a human being – never got to be one.
Life comes from non-life, and a human being is born of something which is not human. Remarkable, the pretzels we tie ourselves into in order to have sex without consequence.
The child is a ‘fetus,’ and not a human being – if it were a human being, it would be unethical to kill it.
Only if you pretend that human beings at all stages of development are equivalent. This is obviously not true. (See children’s rights vs adults’ rights)
What do you put on the birth certificate of the in-vitro child whose “mother” was an aborted female fetus?
The birth mother, just like you do with other children of in-vitro fertilization.
Either the aborted fetus has a name and an identity or it does not. Simply pretending that the “mother” didn’t exist isn’t really an option when doing so contradicts the very real, tangible evidence of a child with DNA that came from . . . where?
Who’s pretending the “mother” (genetic mother) didn’t exist? I see her existing as a fetus.
This inescapably leads to the necessity of granting some sort of minimal legal status for the “mother” that acknowledges her existence. And that existence will have to have something like a name, as a way of distinguishing this “mother” from that one.
I don’t see what’s missing. She was a human who died as a fetus.
From minimal legal status, it’s a short walk to a societal re-evaluation of whether the aborted “mother” really was human or not. At that point, we have a crossroads.
One random leap to another random leap. Yes, fetuses are human. Ugh.
If the “mother” fetus is human, then abortion is murder.
Bullshit. Humans have different rights at different stages of development. Prior to birth, humans have practically no rights.
If the “mother” fetus is not a human, then she cannot be granted legal status, and the USE of the harvested eggs (though not necessarily the harvesting itself) cannot be allowed to continue.
I don’t get this at all. I’m guessing it was based on one of your random earlier leaps of logic.
The thoughts that immediately ran through my head — in the future everyone will have to register their DNA to avoid marrying (or cohabitating) with their own mother, father, half or whole sister or brother. It’s already become a problem to a limited extent with in vitro fertilization.
one-off inbreedings aren’t usually a problem. It’s repetition that causes issues.
[quote]An unethical technology is one that can have no legitimate ethical purpose. There aren’t many of those—biological warfare, perhaps? Everything else needs to regulated to ensure that it isn’t used unethically, with “ethically’ being objectively and rationally considered, but if a technology has a beneficial use, then it can’t be labelled “unethical.”[/quote]
Jack – by that logic, would you then say that this statement could apply to people as well? Would it be fair to say: “There are no ethical or unethical people. Only their actions in a specific situation are ethical or unethical.”?
No, because humans are reasoning creatures, and an individual whose values, priorities, world view and deception-making process is unethical is an unethical person, even though he or she may do ethical things from time to time (for unethical reasons.) Sociopaths are by definition unethical—ethics means nothing to them. Unethical people can do wonderful things–Hitler/Autobahn, Stalin/Defeating Hitler, etc, but those acts flow from unethical motivations and agendas too.
I suppose my problem with this “absolutist” label is more in the speech and determination. Take this for example:
A baby is born and on the first day I ask you if he is ethical or unethical. Being that it’s the baby’s first day of life and no bad could have been done, you respond “Ethical”.
We repeat this process every day for the entirety of the life and each day you respond “Ethical”.
One day though, you respond “Unethical”.
My point is this – a person can change, otherwise bad people would not exist. How does a baby become evil without change? If you believe that a person can become Unethical, then you have to believe that a person can then become Ethical again. That’s simply the notion of redemption.
If we agree that someone can then change between Ethical or Unethical, then what we are really talking about is their status. Are they currently Ethical? Unethical? Inert?
I would disagree that we can know someone’s status. There could probably be an example of someone trying to do evil and have very evil intentions but was so incompetent in their endeavors that they accidentally did good. (Or they were a silent-victim of Robin Hood, if that’s easier to digest.) To the public, all real evidence points to the person having an Ethical status – despite the reality that the result was contradictory to their intentions. Without knowing someone’s intentions (mind-reading) we can’t truly know someone’s status – we can only infer by their actions and what tangibly becomes reality. Consider a man intent on robbing a bank all day with unethical thoughts and at the last minute before entering a bank he is filled with 1 ethical thought that deters him from commencing his crime.
Society judges actions. If we see a pattern, we judge the pattern and apply it to the source. I know deep down that this is simply what you are doing, applying the pattern to the source; but the source is a human and capable of change and surprising variations.
I’m sorry for the long post (rant?) but I feel I’ve articulated my position well and do truly hope I haven’t embarrassed myself by airing these thoughts.
In writing this, I stumbled upon another’s view on this which was a bit more hard to follow, but might be another way to express part of what I’m advocating, which is simply a change in vernacular.
http://www.kiekeben.com/ethics1.html
I think that for most people, we are essentially ethical beings who periodically act unethically, and can become more ethical with thought and practice. Yes, for the most part, actions are ethical or unethical, and people are really not–we just tend to measure them by their actions. And we can never know if someone has changed for the better (or the worse), though experience tells us that it is safer to assume that the person who screwed you over once is more than likely to do it again if you give him the chance. Wiping the slate clean after every act doesn’t make sense. Actions tell us something about the actor, and there are patterns. When we say someone is unethical, what we usually mean is untrustworthy, which is what unethical people, or people prone to be unethical, are. There is such a thing as character, and it is cumulative, and at some point we can say with some confidence that a character is good, trustworthy and governed by ethical values, or not.
Sociopaths are real, and psychology tells us that they lack empathy, pity or concern for anyone other than themselves. It is fair to say sociopaths are not ethical no matter how many good deeds they may do. It is not only fair but accurate to call them “unethical people”…and for the most part, they don’t change. They can only be trusted to do what is best for them, which may also benefit others incidentally.
A thought occurred to me: Aren’t we assuming that this advance HAS the capability of benefitting someone. Obviously, there are people who value the opportunity of aquiring eggs from another person – they are benefitted. But assuming that the eggs aquired in this fashion are neither superior nor inferior to eggs aquired in other fashions – other fashions less ethically questionable – would it not be a more ethical choice to use eggs unshadowed by even possible ethics violations, all else being equal?
I’m not aware of there being a shortage of eggs available currently, nor a massive demand for eggs not being met. Then, barring a pressing NEED to explore potentially dubious sources, wouldn’t it then be preferable to adhere to what is known, rather than to dabble in the potentially unethical?
I suppose I’m picturing a company seeking a product – say, televisions. They’ve got a source that’s on the up-and-up, meets thier needs, and provides a good service. I’d hope that the manager who proposes ‘I know a guy who can get that for us at half the cost – and he’s totally legit: the rumors about him are COMPLETELY made up.’ would be thrown out of the room. (Admittedly, he probably wouldn’t be, but I’d like to think he SHOULD be.)
Sure, this situation may not have anything wrong with it. But anything that can even remotely be fairly compared with ‘Frankenstein’ deserves, I think, careful consideration.
But assuming that the eggs aquired in this fashion are neither superior nor inferior to eggs aquired in other fashions – other fashions less ethically questionable – would it not be a more ethical choice to use eggs unshadowed by even possible ethics violations, all else being equal?
This looks like an endorsement of the heckler’s veto.
I’m not aware of there being a shortage of eggs available currently, nor a massive demand for eggs not being met.
The issue is invasion and cost. To get eggs from a living female is an invasive procedure, and there’s a high cost associated with it.
Then, barring a pressing NEED to explore potentially dubious sources, wouldn’t it then be preferable to adhere to what is known, rather than to dabble in the potentially unethical?
Everything new is potentially dubious. Your argument is ridiculous.
I suppose I’m picturing a company seeking a product – say, televisions. They’ve got a source that’s on the up-and-up, meets thier needs, and provides a good service. I’d hope that the manager who proposes ‘I know a guy who can get that for us at half the cost – and he’s totally legit: the rumors about him are COMPLETELY made up.’ would be thrown out of the room. (Admittedly, he probably wouldn’t be, but I’d like to think he SHOULD be.)
This isn’t a parallel situation. You’re question begging and implying that getting eggs from aborted fetuses is known to be shady. A more appropriate parallel would be a manager saying: “I know we’ve used vendor X, but vendor Y charges less (due to their new, cheaper supply line), shouldn’t we look into vendor Y?” I’d hope that such a manager wouldn’t be kicked out of the room.
Sure, this situation may not have anything wrong with it. But anything that can even remotely be fairly compared with ‘Frankenstein’ deserves, I think, careful consideration.
Nobody is suggesting their shouldn’t be careful consideration. That’s a strawman. Your idea that if we can stretch a comparison to a bad thing implies a required extra layer of scrutiny on that thing is just the heckler’s veto you started with. Well, at least you’re consister