In Vitro Fertilization Opinions

     The reason why couples would choose in vitro fertilization would be because
their reproductive system does not work. This is commonly called infertility. Males can have infertility because of male reproductive problems which can be caused by many ways such as having a low sperm count or the absence of seminal vesicles. Females can have infertility because of female reproductive problems which can also be caused by many ways such as not being able to ovulate (anovulation) or tubal damage. Especially when couples really want to have a baby but normally could not, they will get frustrated and will seek to find solutions. In seeking solutions, they will learn more about the common IVF procedure and its success rate of actually producing a baby. But some couples might not consider the IVF procedure because of all the possible side effects affecting the mother. Not only that, the IVF procedure increases the chance of having multiple babies with the increased possibility of a premature delivery.

If the donor mother decides that she does not want to use the embryos created by in vitro fertilization, it should be safely discarded. I think that it is not ethical at all to sell embryos that are not going to be used. The reason why is because that embryo is from the donor mother’s body along with the donor’s sperm and that is a property which does not have a price tag to it. It does not make sense whatsoever of selling embryos for money. It’s almost like having a baby and selling it for a large sum of money and if this does not make sense then why should selling embryos make sense either? No one has the right to decide what to do with frozen embryos because humans should not be tampering with the functions of the human body anyway. Not only that, the ultimate owner is God who has created us all and we should not make a profit with the Creator’s property and work.

The IVF procedure has also raised questions among the peoples on the ownership of the actual embryo. Nowadays since divorce is an increasing problem among couples, many embryos are simply under the ownership of the laboratory and this is not right because the laboratory has only provided a medium for the embryo to form but has not actually created it from scratch. I truly believe that the embryos that are created from the laboratory are strictly owned by the mother that donated the egg and the father that has donated the sperm. If a laboratory did own an embryo, it is like taking ownership of a baby that has been born in a hospital even though the mother had carried and nurture the baby within the womb. The baby is not the hospital’s but it is the mother’s own baby. The way how such a dilemma about embryo ownership could be solved would be by placing both the mother’s name and the father’s name strictly under the embryo because the egg and sperm are from their body. The egg and sperm did not originate from the laboratory but instead from the couple’s bodies.

I strongly think that a child should not be told that he or she was conceived through an IVF procedure. The main reason why is because the child will not be old enough to understand what exactly is IVF and if it is something that he or she should be worried about. A child can easily develop a misconception and might even believe that he or she was adopted. The child can think that the parents that he or she currently lives with are not his or her true parents. This mindset can turn out to be devastating to the child. Telling the child about how he or she was conceived through IVF might even ruin the relationship between the child and the parents. If both the egg and sperm of the individuals are from the current parents of the child, there is no need to tell them about IVF because the child is living with his or her biological parents. But it would make more sense to tell an older son or daughter about the IVF conception only if the egg and/or sperm were from another parent that they do not know of.