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Embryo, Moral Status of the

Articles

Embryos in Limbo

Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill on IVF and indecision about nascent life

Acorns and Embryos

Robert P. George and Patrick Lee on moral standing and bad metaphors

The Tragedy of Equality

Eric Cohen on the uses of reason, the absurdity of disease, and the quest for justice

Human Frailty and Human Dignity

Leon R. Kass

The Crisis of Everyday Life

Yuval Levin

In What Sense Equal?

Amy Laura Hall on the three meanings of human equality

The First Fourteen Days of Human Life

Patrick Lee and Robert P. George on the biology of the early embryo

 

Blog Posts

The Embryo Dilemma

Los Angeles Times health reporter Shari Roan has a terrific series on “the politics of embryos.” (Bonus: One piece quotes The New Atlantis’s own Yuval Levin.) 

Six years of frustration and heartbreak. That’s how Gina Rathan recalls her attempts to become pregnant.

Finally, she and her husband, Cheddi, conceived a daughter, now 3, through in vitro fertilization. About a year later, she became pregnant with a second child, naturally. Their family was complete.

Then, a year ago, the Fountain Valley couple received a bill reminding them that their infertility journey wasn’t quite over. They owed $750 to preserve three frozen embryos they’d created but hadn’t used....

Finally, the couple paid for three more years of cryopreservation.

“I think about the embryos every day,” Rathan says. “I am their mother. I see them as my own children. They are the DNA from my husband and I. It’s something I worry about, especially when the three years is over and I have to make a decision again.” 

ALSO IN THE LAT: How easy is it to donate embryos to research? Or for adoption? Embryo legislation, state by state.

ART in the News

IVF is not so easy, fertility coaching, and more

• Stanford researchers try to improve IVF odds.
   
• This weekend, the first baby in the U.K. guaranteed not to have the breast cancer gene was born. So where will genetic screening lead? Slashdot debates.
   
• California wants to pay women for eggs for stem cell research.
   
• A Minnesota woman tries to conceive her husband’s child ... after his death.
   
• “To anyone who thinks IVF is an easy option, take it from me, it definitely isn’t.”
   
• Fertility coaching: Does it work?
   
• Increased risk of depression after a successful IVF pregnancy.
   
• Dream baby arrives ... by bus.
   
• In the U.K., “one egg” IVF strategy launched.
   
• Alone and pregnant on purpose: Single moms in Canada commiserate.
   
• Human-pig hybrid embryos given go ahead.

ART in the News: Weekend Round-Up Edition

"Frankenstein Science," Quadruplets, A Gene for Infertility, and More

• For years, sperm banks have focused solely on sperm donors and the women they get pregnant—not the offspring they produce. That's about to change.
  
• Who's more likely to be treated: a premature infant, or an older patient with a lower chance of survival?
  
• "Frankenstein Science": Has Britain lost its way?
  
• "The hardest decision is knowing when to stop treatment. You always think, 'What if the next one works?'"
  
• Do all women have the right to become mothers?
  
• An unusual set of quadruplets: A Nigerian woman gives birth to identical twins and fraternal twins.
  
• "You can walk in and say your sister got pregnant and everyone else will say 'Oh my God, we hate her too.'"
  
• Germany decries Britain's new ART law.
  
• A gene for infertility?
  
• More repro-lit: The pregnant man writes a memoir. A new play about how people become parents.
  
• Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards feud over "sperm donation" email.
  
• Natural remedies for infertility? Acupuncture gains popularity.
  
• The "next big advance in IVF": DNA fingerprinting.
  
• Babies born preterm are more than twice as likely to have major birth defects as full-term infants.

ART in the News: International Edition

Infertility Awareness Week, the HFEA, and more

• It's infertility awareness week in Canada. More Canadians are looking to the U.S. for egg donors.
   
• One in five Irish couples experience infertility.
   
• In the U.K.: A good summary of the debate over the HFEA. Do embryos need fathers? Despite a recent defeat, the abortion debate is heating up. Is Britain "one step closer to designer babies?" How about cybrids?
   
• Gordon Brown defends embryo research: a "moral endeavor" that can save the "lives of millions."
   
• Simon Jenkins: "MPs should stop meddling in how people choose to plan and protect their families. They have enough trouble with their own."
   
• South Korea bans cross-species cloning. Disgraced stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-Suk will clone dogs for cash.