Medical science continues to leap ahead of public opinion and the legal system. In-vitro fertilisation developments in the past month has astonished and revolted many people.
In Britain a 59-year-old woman gave birth to twins after being given in-vitro fertilisation treatment in Italy and a 62-year-old woman is three months pregnant after similarly receiving an embryo implant. Then it was announced that it was possible for a couple to chose the colour of a child. A black woman chose an egg from a white woman. Initially it was thought she did this to ensure a mixed-race looking child because her husband was mixed race, but later it was revealed she did this because of a shortage of donor eggs. None the less, the case showed that a choice was possible. And it is not limited to skin colour. Height, morphism, hair colour, IQ and other characteristics of the donor can also be selected. Apparently, we are in the age of designer babies.
These developments were followed by something more bizarre. A British researcher, Dr Roger Gosden, announced that eggs could be taken from aborted fetuses, fertilised and implanted into a carrier mother. The resultant child’s mother, in these circumstances would never have been born. Dr Gosden said the technique had been successful in mice and was technically only about three years away with humans. At present there is a shortage of donor eggs. Dr Gosden thought that eggs from fetuses could be used for thousands of young women who had premature menopause, who had lost fertility through radiation treatment for cancer or who were otherwise infertile. Fetal ovaries are laid down from about 10 to 12 weeks and reach a maximum of five million eggs by five months, declining to a million at birth.
Many people’s initial reaction would be one of revulsion. Others have raised ethical, legal and practical issues. The medical developments lead us to question many fundamental ethical and legal assumptions. Clearly there is a need to approach the research itself and its application with great caution and care, both in the case of in-vitro fertilisation of older women and in the use of fetal eggs.
The role of the state in regulating the treatment of infertile women is a core issue. Have women a right to procreate using whatever medical science is available to overcome any infertility? The role of the state in abortion has given rise to some of the deepest controversies in society. Some legislatures have made it a crime for both the woman and the assisting doctor to assist an abortion. Others have let women control their own fertility. If a legislature lets women stop a pregnancy, is it in any position to stop a woman who wants to get pregnant through artificial means. Once the state steps into this role, how far will it go?
The French Minister for Health, Philippe Douste-Blazy, in announcing France would prohibit in-vitro fertilisation in older post-menopausal women said, “”I think it is absolutely shocking that a child can be 18 when his mother is 80. It is totally undeserved.”
This is a sexist, knee-jerk reaction. Men can father children into their nineties. And it is commonplace for men to father children in their late-50s and 60s. Why should it be different for women? If it is different for women, then the whole basis of anti-discrimination law (both on grounds of age and sex) could be reopened. Is there some fear on the part of politicians that the state would be left holding the baby, so to speak, if the elderly women prove incapable of nursing them through childhood. That assertion questions the role of the welfare state.
How much control over people’s lives can the state claim in the name of its provision welfare, education and health? At present it has the practical means to control the medically assisted creation of human life through control of the medical profession and the provision of medical services. However, do-it-yourself in-vitro kits are not beyond the realm of possibility. How then is the state to distinguish between natural births and artificial births?
On the use of eggs from fetuses, fetal material is already used in medical treatment, such a treatment of symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. How does this differ from the use of fetal eggs?
The questions go on. The fact that there are so many questions, most of which have no answers and certainly no community consensus at present, indicates a need for much more discussion. That discussion should engage the medical profession and people directly affected by the new technologies. It may well be that the use of the technologies will be prohibited and the prohibition will be supported in the community. However, it has often been the case that medical advances which at first seem abhorrent and bizarre become commonplace _ heart transplants in one that comes to mind.
Any discussion or regulation will obviously have to carefully balance the rights, needs and wants or resulting children, the rights of women to bear children and the general good of society ordering its research and medical priorities. It will become a balance between individual rights and community well-being. Giving too much weight to either side has its dangers. Do we want to end up with the position that you have to get a licence to have a baby, natural or otherwise?