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Abstract
On February 29, 2024, the Alabama State Legislature raised a national debate over the ethics of In Vitro Fertilization. The Los Angeles Times on March 4 declared the law’s assumption that the embryo is a person (and by extension would have moral status) must be opposed because it stifles the right of women to have abortions and use IVF. In this paper I argue that an embryo has moral status based on what I call its “organic destiny,” which reveals its goodness of existence. I explain this according to the inner directivity of biological life to mature through the stages of being an embryo, newborn, toddler, to adulthood. The biggest ethical problem with the procedure of IVF is what to do with the leftover embryos not used in the process. IVF per se does not necessarily overlook the moral status of the embryo, but to discard the leftovers because they are now superfluous would overlook and disrespect their moral status. Thus, for the procedure of IVF to recognize ethically the moral status of the embryo, it should proceed with only one embryo at a time.
Keywords: in vitro fertilization, moral status, embryo, organic destiny, Aristotle, Bible
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Cite as: nnis Sansom, “The Moral Status of the Embryo in the Ethical Debate over In Vitro Fertilization,” Ethics & Medicine 38, no. 3 (2022): Online first.
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About the Author
Dennis L. Sansom, PhD
Dennis L. Sansom, PhD, is the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Samford University, where he has been teaching since 1988. Most of his research is in medical ethics, the relationship between literature and philosophy, and issues dealing with the philosophy of religion found in the history of philosophy.