If life begins at conception, then the practice of in vitro-fertilization (IVF) is morally questionable.
The debate rages on as to whether an embryo (a fertilized egg) is a human being or merely a "potential" human being, but putting all opinions aside, the scientific truth of the matter is that a unique human being comes into existence at the very moment of fertilization. As pro-life author, Randy Alcorn, says, there is only one moment in time when there isn't a human being and when there is: conception.
"But," many will argue, "you can hardly compare a cluster of cells to a full-term baby. The embryo doesn't even look like a human being yet; therefore, it isn't." This is a moot point. Why? Because human beings aren't fully developed at birth either. The sexual organs do not finish developing until puberty and the brain doesn't finish developing until late adolescence. It literally takes a human being a good 18 years to finish growing and developing.
It is often argued that "just because an embryo has human DNA, it doesn't mean it is a human being. A sperm has human DNA, too." Anyone who says this is missing the crucial difference: While the sperm and the egg do individually contain human DNA - the DNA of the father or the mother - there is no new human being involved. It is thus scientifically inaccurate to compare sperm to embryos because "they both have human DNA." To do so is no different than comparing a human being to a body part, such as a finger (which like the person, has human DNA). If you were to place a sperm inside a uterus, nothing would grow/develop, because a sperm is only half the equation.
When a sperm and egg join at conception, however, the human DNA is no longer that of the father or mother - the DNA is now unique to the embryo, and is, in fact, the embryo's DNA. This is because an embryo is a brand new human being in the earliest stage of development; which, if left uninterrupted, will continue on through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
Therefore, an early miscarriage is the death of a human being, just as the death of a toddler, a teenager, or an elderly person, is also the death of a human being - each at a different stage of life/development.
So, how does this all relate to IVF?
In the IVF process, several eggs are removed from a woman's ovaries (drugs have been taken in advance to create more eggs than would normally be produced in one cycle). The eggs are then placed in a petri dish along with a man's sperm. Fertilization will occur in the dish as sperm and eggs join up or the sperm may need to be injected directly into the eggs. Either way, multiple eggs are fertilized and are soon embryos.
According to Dr. Leon Speroff (Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Infertility, Williams and Wilkins, 5th ed., 1994, 937-39) 3 to 6 embryos will then be inserted into the woman's uterus with the hope that at least 1 of them will implant; but the success rate is extremely low. This means that for every failed IVF, at least 6 embryos have died. For every "successful" IVF in which one or 2 embryos survive, at least 2 to 4 others have died. Multiply this by repeat attempts over several months and the number of embryos who have died or been frozen numbers in the dozens.
This means that a woman who chooses to have IVF performed is willingly creating embryos in a petri dish (each of which is a new human being) while fully acknowledging that the majority of these embryos, if not all of them, are going to die. She is deliberately sacrificing the lives of several children in the hopes of having just one or two children.
Randy Alcorn, author of Pro-life Answers to Pro-choice Arguments says, "To the argument 'You can't seriously believe a frozen embryo is a human being,' the proper response is, 'Both scientifically and theologically we can't seriously believe a frozen embryo is anything other than a human being.' "
Contact: Bekah Ferguson
Source: Pro-Life Blogs
Publish Date: October 23, 2010
