Babies by Means of in Vitro Fertilization: Unethical Experiments on the Unborn?

Abstract

The coming technologies of human reproduction pose many difficult and important ethical and social problems. A major question concerns the propriety of perfecting these technologies by experiments on the unborn and the unconceived. Because the new procedures for in vitro fertilization and laboratory culture of human embryos probably carry a serious risk of damage to any child so generated, there appears to be no ethical way to proceed. One cannot ethically choose for a child the unknown hazards that he must face, and simultaneously choose to give him life in which to face them. Also, one must be careful to avoid exploiting the desires and hopes of childless couples. The medical and scientific communities ought to assume the major responsibility for scrutinizing and regulating the human use of new technologies emerging from research into human reproduction.