Desire to have Children - Essay Example

Finally, they decided to attempt in vitro fertilization. Mary Sue supplied nine eggs for the procedure, and her husband supplied sperm, which medical experts used to fertilize all the nine eggs in a laboratory. The medical personnel implanted two eggs in Mary Sue’s womb, but pregnancy did not result. The medical personnel froze the remaining seven fertilized eggs in order to preserve them for future use. Sometime later, the couple divorced, but they disagreed on who between them should claim the fertilized eggs and to what use they should be put.

Mar Sue claimed ownership of the fertilized eggs and expressed the desire to have them implanted in her body. Junior opposed Mary Sue’s claim of ownership and intention to implant the eggs. Instead, he wanted them destroyed. Mary Sue filed a law suit in court regarding the case. The judge ruled in her favor and granted her temporary custody of the fertilized eggs, so as to avail Mary Sue the chance to achieve a normal pregnancy by having medical experts implant the eggs in her womb. The rationale of this decision was that human life begins at conception and, therefore, the fertilized eggs were persons who have the right to the provision of suitable conditions and support that would allow them to develop into normal human beings.

The judge added that the final custody of the child, child support, and visitation would be decided by the same court if one of the eggs results in birth. II. Ethical Question to be Answered Was Judge W. Dale Young morally justified in regarding the fertilized eggs as persons that have a right to life and not as property? III. Proposed Answers to Ethical Question Judge Young’s decision was not morally justified because the frozen fertilized eggs were not naturally conceived and, therefore, this argument does not parallel the ones put forward by opponents of abortion.

It is appropriate to regard the fertilized eggs as property because medical experts created them artificially and, therefore, are the creation of human beings. In addition, the fertilized eggs do not have a societal, moral responsibility and; thus, they cannot be regarded as persons. A person has a moral role to play in society, the fertilized eggs do not. IV. Objections to Proposed Answers and Responses to the Objections Objection (1): The conceptus is a living human being because the continuous process of growth and development of human beings begins at conception.

Therefore, the frozen fertilized eggs should be regarded as conceptus since they came into existence as a result of conception. Whether conception takes place in a woman’s body or scientists induce it artificially in the laboratory, fact is it leads to the creation of a human life form, the zygote. Response (1): The conceptus does not have any of the functions of a human being and, therefore, cannot be bestowed with the same status as a human being living in the real world. Fertilized eggs are just a mass of cells which scientists or medical experts keep alive through artificial means, without whose assistance they will surely die.

A zygote that medical experts create and preserve through an artificially regulated process is not a real form of human life. This is because it is not supported or sustained in any way by the life processes that manifest themselves through nature. The same way that a graft of skin cells obtained from a person represents a living part of that person, it cannot be regarded as a person because they lack any of the moral functions associated with a person. Objection (2): God imparts a soul onto human beings at conception and not at birth since birth is just a transition from the womb into the world.

The life of the baby did not begin at birth, but it was alive from the moment of conception. Since every human