What happens when a family has an ill child whose only hope is to have a donor, but there is no perfect match for a donor? Some families resort to creating a savior sibling. Lahl refers to savior siblings as kids formed through “in vitro fertilization” to serve as a “match” for their sibling(s) who require a “donor ” to survive (Lahl 1).However, not everyone is alright with the idea of creating savior siblings. Some people like Catholics believe it is unethical to produce human beings for the sole purpose of saving someone else’s life while others like doctors think it is beneficial to humanity. French Catholic bishops believe it is disrespectful of the kid’s “dignity” to be born “to be used”(Fournier 1). Also, in Christianity, one of the …show more content…
In “To Be or Not to Be My Sister’s Keeper ?”, Amy Lai (writer for the Journal of Legal Medicine)states that the kid can experience “anxiety both before and after” the operations (Lai).A kid having anxiety before and/or after a surgery could possibly obtain an trauma if something goes wrong in the operation. Additionally, Lai points out that the savior sibling could possibly experience “psychological harm” if he or she discovers that he or she was desired to help his or her sister or brother survive instead of just being desired for “himself or herself” (Lai).That discovery could lower the savior sibling’s sense of worth or make them feel they are less important which results in a lower self esteem. Unfortunately, savior siblings also face the possibility of bearing physical harm when donating to his or her ill sibling. Kristie Trifiolis states that “bone marrow donation” can possibly cause “infection, pain, and discomfort”. Also, she points out that donating “organs” puts the savior sibling through “physical pain” and makes him or her feeble (Trifiolis 12). For instance, in the film: My Sister’s Keeper, when Anna, at age six, donated Granulocytes (a kind of white blood cell) to Kate (her ill sister). Long needles were inserted in Anna’s bones in order to obtain the Granulocytes for Kate. Therefore that caused serious pain to Anna, since the needles were inserted in …show more content…
According to Lahl, the process of formation involves forming “human embryos in vitro, which literally means ‘in glass’ (i.e. a test tube), using the egg from the mother and fertilizing the egg with the father’s sperm. Then …, the embryos are tested, and the one deemed genetically compatible is implanted into the mother’s womb ….”(Lahl 1) Humans should not be created in a test tube. That process makes it seem like humans are laboratory experiments, which could possibly downgrade humans to things like genetically modified foods. Based on “The Use of Children as Sibling Donors is Unethical”, in the formation process, the extra embryos are killed after the perfect match for the sick child is found. For example, as shown by Lahl, when the Nashes had their savior sibling, Adam to save their ill daughter, Mollie from Fanconi’s anemia .Their parents formed “thirty embryos” ,and only picked 1 “embryo”. The rest of the “embryos” were killed, since they were not a perfect match to save Mollie from her illness. (Lahl) The killing off of the extra embryos is wrong. A person is alive since conception (the moment where an egg fertilizes with a sperm).Therefore when doctors dispose the extra embryos; they are killing innocent lives that will never have a chance to live outside a test tube. Also, the donation process a savior sibling goes through could be
In kilner’s case study “Having a baby the new-fashioned way”, present a story that can be relatable to a lot of families struggling to have a child. This is a dilemma that can be controversial and ethical in own sense. The couple that were discussed in the case study were Betty and Tom. Betty and Tom who are both in their early forties who have struggled to bear children. Dr. Ralph Linstra from Liberty University believes that “Fertility can be taken for granted”. Dr. Ralph talks about how many couples who are marriage may run into an issue of bearing a child and turn to “medical science” to fix the issue. He discusses that “God is author of life and he can open and close the womb”. That in it’s self presents how powerful God.
The fight against diseases, especially these serious diseases causing untold suffering for many people, must be continuous and heroic. Fetal tissue use has a promising hope for people in their old age to be and live more sustainable. Even though fetal research does not hold the certainty but only a possibility of cures for such diseases, such possibilities should be realized if one has the resources and there is no moral impediment to doing so. But that remains the question. Is there a moral impediment to such research? ...
Recent high profile cases, films and books all around the world including the UK, Australia and the United States have brought to the public’s attention a new type of IVF. ‘Embryo Selection’ meaning ‘Embryos are fertilised outside the body and only those with certain genes are selected and implanted in the womb.’ Henceforth meaning that doctors are now able to select specific embryo’s and implant them into the mother of who may have another sick child in order to gain genetic material such as bone marrow which will match the ill-fated child and therefore hopefully be able to save their life. Creating a ‘saviour sibling’. ‘A child conceived through selective in vitro fertilization as a potential source of donor organs or cells for an existing brother or sister with a life-threatening medical condition’ a definition given by Oxford Dictionaries (1.0). Cases of this are happening all around the globe and many are highly documented about. The most famous case could be noted as in the fictional book of ‘My Sisters Keeper’ By Jodi Picoult. I will further discuss this throughout my dissertation and how books and films can affect the view on certain ethical subjects. Furthermore, I am also going to discuss a range of factors such as certain religious beliefs and the physical creation of saviour siblings compared to the creation of designer babies. Strong views are held by many both for and against the creation of saviour siblings.
In discussing whether God must create the best world that he can, Robert M. Adams raises the following hypothetical (Adams 1972, 326). Imagine a drug exists which is known to cause severe intellectual disability in any children conceived by a couple who takes it. If a couple desires to raise an intellectually disabled child, takes the drug, and conceives such a child, the challenge is to explain what, if anything, they have done wrong. The problem illustrated by this hypothetical is known as the “non-identity” problem (Benatar 2006, 114). The solution presented by Adams is that the parents have violated the following principle: “It is wrong for human beings to cause, knowingly and voluntarily, the procreation of an offspring of human parents which is notably deficient, by comparison with normal human beings, in mental or physical capacity” (Adams 1972, 330). After discussing whether someone is harmed by the parents’ action, this paper will build on the solution presented by Adams by suggesting two ways of understanding why the couple’s action was wrong – one utilitarian, and one virtue based.
Couples experiencing infertility issues now have a number of options at their disposal from in-vitro fertilization to intrauterine insemination or going as far as using a surrogate and donor eggs or donor sperm. Technology has made it possible for someone to experience the joy of parenthood regardless of whether they can naturally conceive children. All of these procedures come with their own ethical questions and pros and cons. One of the biggest moral dilemmas is what to do with the left-over embryos still in storage when a family has decided they have had enough children. Most couples see this ethical quandary because they recognize that the embryos are whole human beings and do not think it is morally right to dispose
What do one think of when they hear the words “Designer Babies”? A couple designing their own baby of course, and it’s become just that. Technology has made it possible for there to be a way for doctors to modify a babies characteristics and its health. Genetically altering human embryos is morally wrong, and can cause a disservice to the parents and the child its effecting.
Picture a young couple in a waiting room looking through a catalogue together. This catalogue is a little different from what you might expect. In this catalogue, specific traits for babies are being sold to couples to help them create the "perfect baby." This may seem like a bizarre scenario, but it may not be too far off in the future. Designing babies using genetic enhancement is an issue that is gaining more and more attention in the news. This controversial issue, once thought to be only possible in the realm of science-fiction, is causing people to discuss the moral issues surrounding genetic enhancement and germ line engineering. Though genetic research can prove beneficial to learning how to prevent hereditary diseases, the genetic enhancement of human embryos is unethical when used to create "designer babies" with enhanced appearance, athletic ability, and intelligence.
I believe that parents are not morally justified in having a child merely to provide life saving medical treatment to another child or family member, but that this does not mean that the creation of savior siblings is morally impermissible. By having a child solely to provide life saving medical treatment, you are treating this child merely as a means rather than an end to the individual child. By having the child solely as a means to save another, you are violating this savior sibling in that you are treating them as a source of spare parts that can be used by the sickly child in order to solely promote the prolonged life of the currently sick child. This view that having a child merely as a way to provide medical treatment does not consider the multitude of other avenues that this newborn child can take, and presupposes that the child will only be used for the single purpose of providing life saving medical treatment through use of stems cells or organ donation. What this view fails to consider is that these savior siblings are valued by families for so much more than just as a human bag of good cells and organs that can be used to save the life of the original child. Instead, these savior siblings can be valued as normal children themselves, in that they can be valued in the same way that any other child who is born is valued, yet at the same time they will also be able to provide life-saving treatment to their sibling. My view runs parallel to the view held by Claudia Mills who argues that it is acceptable to have a savior sibling, yet at the same time we can not have a child for purely instrumental motives, and instead should more so value the child for the intrinsic worth that they have. Mills presents her argument by puttin...
Imagine yourself in a society in which individuals with virtually incurable diseases could gain the essential organs and tissues that perfectly match those that are defected through the use of individual human reproductive cloning. In a perfect world, this could be seen as an ideal and effective solution to curing stifling biomedical diseases and a scarcity of available organs for donation. However, this approach in itself contains many bioethical flaws and even broader social implications of how we could potentially view human clones and integrate them into society. Throughout the focus of this paper, I will argue that the implementation of human reproductive cloning into healthcare practices would produce adverse effects upon family dynamic and society due to its negative ethical ramifications. Perhaps the most significant conception of family stems from a religious conception of assisted reproductive technologies and cloning and their impact on family dynamics with regard to its “unnatural” approach to procreation. Furthermore, the broader question of the ethical repercussions of human reproductive cloning calls to mind interesting ways in which we could potentially perceive and define individualism, what it means to be human and the right to reproduction, equality and self-creation in relation to our perception of family.
Part of this philosophy is that morality is about making people happy vice pleasing God ( ). People suffering like Christopher Reeve would be more than happy if a cure was found that allowed them to live a normal life. Many people in society would have been happy too as possibly another sequel of Superman could have graced the silver screens staring Reeve. Burn victims would be happy to not live life in pain and disfigurement. An embryo has not developed to a point where it can be happy and, in most cases, are going to be discarded anyway. Since consequences are the most important in this utilitarianism, there wouldn’t be any as the embryo would have been destroyed anyways. So, ethically, using them would be in the best interest at making people
The addition of a child into a family’s home is a happy occasion. Unfortunately, some families are unable to have a child due to unforeseen problems, and they must pursue other means than natural pregnancy. Some couples adopt and other couples follow a different path; they utilize in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood. The process is complicated, unreliable, but ultimately can give the parents the gift of a child they otherwise could not have had. At the same time, as the process becomes more and more advanced and scientists are able to predict the outcome of the technique, the choice of what child is born is placed in the hands of the parents. Instead of waiting to see if the child had the mother’s eyes, the father’s hair or Grandma’s heart problem, the parents and doctors can select the best eggs and the best sperm to create the perfect child. Many see the rise of in vitro fertilization as the second coming of the Eugenics movement of the 19th and early 20th century. A process that is able to bring joy to so many parents is also seen as deciding who is able to reproduce and what child is worthy of birthing.
This report will outline the ethics of conceiving a child for the purpose of using cells, tissues or even organs to treat an existing child with a fatal disease. In outlining the ethics of saviour siblings, the question of whether it is ethical to conceive a child for the purpose of becoming a saviour will be explored.
Jesus tells his disciples a parable of the Prodigal son. But first, there is this family that has two sons. The youngest son asks his father for his inheritance. The youngest son then took the inheritance and ran away to spend it all. Then he ran into trouble. He ran out of money so he came back home. Instead of being punished he was welcomed with open arms. The older brother was furious. The older brother does everything right and never gets welcomed the way his brother does. This relates a lot to “Why I live at the P.O”. The oldest sister was getting along fine with her family until the youngest sister (Stella Rondo) decided to come back. They were excited to see Stella Rondo; Sister was jealous. Sister wants all the attention not the other way around. Sister then becomes petty and try to turn the family against Stella Rondo but turns out that Stella-Rondo becomes that master of the game. Sister tries to accuse Stella Rondo of lying but the family does not buy it. They do not believe sister but according to sister they believe Stella Rondo and rather take Stella Rondo’s side. Sister accuses her of lying but how do we know that sister is not the one lying. So at the end of the story Stella Rondo has turned everyone in the family against Sister. Sister got tired of all the ridicule and decides to take “what was hers” and leave. Sister then goes to the P.O. (post office) and decides to live
One of these moral dilemmas is that genetic engineering changes the traditional dynamic that occurs between the parent and the offspring. This issue arose over the possibility of having a human embryo with three genetic parents which is now possible due to genetic engineering. The procedure in question “involves transplanting the chromosomes from a single-cell embryo or from an unfertilized egg into a donor egg or embryo from which the chromosomes have been removed”(Foht). The procedure itself is very useful for women with mitochondrial disorders but the issue involved with this is that the embryo would technically have three biological parents. There needs to be a real concern about “the way genetic engineering can alter the relationship between the generations from one of parents accepting the novelty and spontaneous uniqueness of their children to one where parents use biotechnology to choose and control the biological nature of their children”(Foht). There is a special relationship between children and their parents that may be disappearing very soon due to these techniques. Children could be born never truly knowing one of their genetic parents. If these procedures continue to prosper people will have to “accept arrangements that split apart the various biological and social aspects of parenthood, and that deliberately create
Parker, Michael. "The Best Possible Child." Journal of Medical Ethics 33.5 (2007): 279-283. Web. 1 Apr 2011. .