The Invitro Fertilization Issue

Ray Ross
The Invitro Fertilization Issue

In mid-February, the Alabama Supreme Court in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C. made what has become a very controversial ruling regarding frozen embryos intended for In vitro fertilization (IVF).
The Court ruled that under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, the definition of a child included those who are unborn.
The case involved multiple set of parents who had their frozen embryos destroyed (killed) by negligent actions. The Center for Reproductive Health claimed a patient wandered into their lab and accidently dropped the embryos.
The Court had to decide whether the embryos were “things” that could be destroyed or children covered by Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. The Court in an 8 to 1 decision ruled that the embryos were children covered by the Wrongful Death of a Minor law. (The destroyed embryos were now dead and you can’t die unless you previously lived.)
The ruling set off a firestorm across the multi-billion dollar Big Fertilization business. There are currently more that a million frozen embryos stored in the United States.
Back in New Hampshire, my next door neighbor’s five children were all conceived using IVF. More and more children are being born through this process – often because the parents have delayed starting a family because of career priorities and when they do decide to have a family, they have difficulty getting pregnant..
A news segment a few years ago featured interviews with some of the 67 sets of twins and triplets at Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut. That’s not happening naturally.
The Catholic Church does not allow in vitro fertilization. While new life is often created, most embryos are eventually destroyed and that’s the problem.
IVF presents very challenging ethical problems. When does human life begin? Do the unborn have a right to life and are the unborn protected by law? How do we treat the unused embryos? Can they be destroyed? As more and more, couples look to in vitro fertilization, we need to discern what to do with the frozen embryos who deserve the dignity inherent in our humanity.