JURASSIC AGE TECHNOLOGY

In Vitro fertilization

Chromosome mapping

Genetic Screening

Mammal cloning

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 IN VITRO FERTILIZATION
In Vitro Fertilization & Embryo Transplant – IVF-ET

Fertilization that is artificially performed outside

of the woman’s body.
Process:
One or more eggs are surgically removed from a
woman’s ovary, fertilized with her husband’s
sperm in a laboratory dish, and developed in the
dish for a few days, after which the tiny embryo
is transferred into the woman’s uterus in the
hope that pregnancy will proceed normally.

First test tube baby - Louise Brown, born on

July 25, 1978, at Lancashire, England - Drs.
Robert Edwards & Patrick Steptoe

First test tube baby in the U.S. - Elizabeth

Jordan Carr, born on Dec. 28, 1981 in Norfolk
Gen. Hospital, Norfolk, Virginia.

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 Justifications/Reasons for IVF-ET:

Needed by married couples who are unable

to reproduce because of infertility possibly
involving both male and female anatomical
defects.

Male: - problems with the sperm

(low sperm count)

Female: - defects in the fallopian tubes and

the uterus
(obstruction in reproductive tract)
- ovulation disorders
- endometriosis

Procedure:
1.. Suppression
11. Oocyte retrieval
III. Implantation of embryo in the uterus:

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 Types of IVF-ET:

1. Wife’s ovum is fertilized with husband’s

sperm in a test-tube, then embryo is
transferred to wife’s uterus.
2. Use of surrogate mother:
a) Wife’s ovum is fertilized with husband’s
sperm; their embryo is transplanted to
surrogate mother;
b) Donor’s ovum is fertilized with husband’s
sperm and embryo is transplanted to
uterus of wife;
c) Fertilization of female donor’s ovum with
male donor’s ovum; then the embryo is
transferred into the uterus of the wife.

Surrogate parenthood:

This is resorted to when the wife who wishes to

bear and raise a child is medically incapable of
carrying a pregnancy for the reasons that:
* no uterus
* afflicted with medical condition where
pregnancy will endanger her life.

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 Types of surrogate motherhood:

1. “Full” surrogate motherhood – the union of

the surrogate mother’s egg and the
social father’s sperm.
2 . “Partial” surrogacy - the wife is able to
produce fertilizable eggs but medically
unable to carry a pregnancy. Her eggs
are fertilized in vitro with the sperms from
her husband and the resulting embryo is
transferred to the uterus of a surrogate
mother. The gestational mother is called
a “surrogate carrier”.

Four principal ethical & public policy

questions that have been raised about
surrogate motherhood arrangements:

1. If the surrogate mother decides during the

pregnancy or at the time of delivery to keep
the child that she had agreed to bear for a
couple, who should have parental rights?
2. To what extent should the adopting couple
be able to control the lifestyle of the
surrogate mother during the pregnancy?
3. If the child is born with physical or mental
handicaps, are the adopting parents
nonetheless obligated to accept the child as
their own?
4. If the surrogate mother receives payment, for
what is the payment made, and how can
exploitative or coercive relationships be
avoided?

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Benefits of IVF-ET:

1. Makes it possible for many couples to

conceive children, who would not
otherwise be able to do so;
2. Research into improving IVF-ET may lead
to better and more effective
contraceptives:
3. Research with animals using the
techniques of IVF-ET can be employed to
determine the ways in which various
environmental toxins and drugs affect the
developing fetus – the aim is to discover
means by which specific chemicals alter
development and result in defective
offspring.
4. Gene repair - might make it pos-sible to
locate defects in genes, that when
uncorrected, lead to faulty development of
 the fetus. Additional know-ledge might
allow faulty genes to be replaced or
repaired, thus opening an entirely new
chapter of fetal medicine.
5. Surrogate mothers:
a) A woman with abnormal uterus who is not
capable of a normal pregnancy might
contribute an ovum that, after being fertilized
in vitro, is transplanted in the uterus of a
second woman whose uterus has been
prepared to receive it. The “host” or
surrogate mother then carries the baby to
term.
b)Prenatal adoption – a woman unable to
ovulate normally but otherwise capable of
pregnancy, might choose to “adopt” an
embryo, carried by another woman.

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Defects/Difficulties:

1. Complete separation of reproduction from

love-making.
2. Many fertilized embryos may be produced
but not carried to term. Only a single
fertilized ovum is selected for implantation.
The others are simply discarded. The
destruction of fertilized ova is viewed as
tantamount to abortion.
3. Process promotes false attitude that the
child is not a gift but a product and a
possession who exists prima- rily to satisfy a
parental need rather than for his/her own
sake;
4. Denies the right of the child to its own
parents. Children begotten by AID may
wonder:
- do they have really parents?
- Are they begotten by unknown
fathers?
- Are they manufactured in a
laboratory?
5. It is impossible to assess the risks to the
fetus and to the person it may become.
British incidence show a very low success –
9%. Pregnancies were oftentimes
complicated:
* spontaneous abortions - 26%
* ectopic pregnancy - 5%
* multiple pregnancies - 19%
* CS, single pregnancies - 46%
* CS, multiple pregnancies- 72%
* Premature delivery & fetal
hypertrophy - 3% higher than
normal delivery

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6. May encourage the development of eugenic
ideas about improving the species. Rather
than having children of their own, would-be
parents might be motivated to seek out
ova/sperm from people who possess
physical and intellectual characteristics that
are particularly admired.
7. Would-be parents might be inclined to
exercise the potential for control over the
sex of their offspring
8. Determination of the sex of the embryo
would allow the potential parents to decide
whether they wish to have a male or female
child.
9. Likely to promote a social climate in which
having children becomes severed from the
family. Procedure places emphasis on the
mechanic of fertilization and in doing so,
minimizes significance of the shared love
and commitment of the parents of a child
conceived by normal intercourse.
10. The procedure offers opportunity for an
unmarried woman to have a child without
having anything to do with the biological
father of the child.
`

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 Essential Ethical Consideration:

The child must be brought into existence by

the natural love act of the married couple. IVF-ET
separates love-making from procreation.

Arguments:
1. Freezing and storage of early human
embryos.
2. Donation or sale of human embryos
3. Early gender selection
4. Early diagnosis of genetic or
chromosomal abnormalities

Freezing and Storage: - problems:

Metaphysical Problem:
What status to ascribe to an
undifferentiated human entity that can be
preserved for years in a status of suspended
animation.

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 Ethical & Legal Problems:

1. The legal status of the human embryo.

Is it a human being in the embryonic
state or is it considered a “thing”? IVF
involves the loss of embryos during the
different phases of the procedure;
excess embryos are discarded while
others are utilized for research. –
Violates a fundamental right, hence,
morally illicit.
2. The mode of obtaining semen -
masturbation is morally illicit.
3. Utilizing donor sperms or ova or hiring
surrogate mothers is clearly immoral. It
presupposes anonymous paternity
(biological adultery). Moreover, heterologous
IVF carries dangers of consanguinity or
incest.
4. Rupture of the unitive from the procreative
aspect of the sexual act. It is morally illicit to
give rise to a new person with an act distinct
from the conjugal act.
5. Risk on the life of the fetus:
Can the life of the fetus be protected
when the embryo is transferred to an
artificial womb?

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6. Would it be illicit to transplant an embryo
naturally conceived from the uterus of its
mother to a foster mother for the good of the
child or because of serious danger to the
mother?
7. Sperm bank?
a. Freezing, storing embryos will also
facilitate the donation or sale of human
embryos to third parties.
b. Should frozen, stored embryos be
regarded as the “property” of the couple
whose reproduc- tive cells combined to
produce the embryos?
8. Sex determination - will have possible long-
term effects on the sex ratio.
9. Embryos found to be affected by genetic or
chromosomal abnormality are discarded.
10. Since it involves introduction of third-party
gametes, it undermines the family or that it
could have negative effects on the husband
or the potential child.

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Moral questions raised by artificial procreation:
Artificial insemination, In vitro fertilization, Surrogate motherhood)

1. These new reproductive technologies lead to

the manipulation of the ovaries and sperms
of donors, ovary culture, octogenesis,
interspecies fertilization, etc., to a situation
in which reproduction is converted into one
more of those “techniques”, completely
separated from the family and left “to the
responsibility of the learned”. One would
have arrived at the greatest folly of history: a
society that “edits children, without father or
mother . . . and where the word LOVE has no
meaning.
2. Donation or sale of human embryos:
-closely paralles the question of semen
donation or sale.
3. Early gender selection:
raises subtle, and hotly-debated questions
about sex determination and possible long
term effects on the sex ratio.
4. Pre-implantation diagnosis of genetic or
chromosomal abnormalities:
Any embryo found to be affected by a
genetic or chromosomal abnormality would
presumably not be transferred but, rather,
would be discarded.
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 ETHICAL EVALUATION

The child must be brought into existence by the

natural love act of the married couple.

Instruction Donum Vitae which contained

the conclusions drawn by the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith on biomedical
experiments published on Feb. 22, 1987:

1. Respect for the human embryo.

Therapeutic interventions on the human
embryo are licit “as long as they respect the
life and integrity of the embryo and do not
involve disproportionate risks for it but are
directed towards its healing”
2. “Unless there is moral certainty of not
causing harm to the life and integrity of the
unborn child and the mother, and on the
condition that the parents have given their
free and informed consent to the procedure”
only then can we consider licit any type of
research and experimentation on embryo
and human fetuses.
3. “Corpses of human embryos as fetuses,
whether deliberately aborted or not, must be
respected like mortal remains of any other
human being”. 14
4. The document stresses “the special gravity
of the voluntary destruction of human
embryos obtained in vitro for the sole
purpose of research”.
5. It also rejects other forms of biological or
genetic manipulation of human embryos
against the dignity of the human being
proper to the embryo and that transgress the
right of the person to be conceived and born
in and of marriage. (Twin fission, cloning,
parthenogenesis).
6. The freezing of embryos, even when carried
out un order to keep alive an embryo-
cryopreservation – “constitutes an eoofense
against the respect due to human beings by
exposing them to the grave risks of health or
harm to their physical integrity”.
7. Likewise, certain attempts to influence
chromosomic and genetic inheritance that
are not therapeutic but are aimed at
choosing the sex or other qualities “are
contrary to the personal dignity of the human
being, to his or her integrity and to his or her
identity”.