Referring to your interesting point about the desire to implant extra embryos to make sure one takes, lest there be "no gain" - that totally makes sense to me in the circumstance of a woman where this is potentially her only chance to have a biological child. I respect and honor that. I think that what a lot of the other comments are getting at is that it seems like there should be less, not more flexibility when dealing with situations where it's not an all-or-nothing kind of deal.
If none of the embryos had implanted successfully in this case, what would have been the result? She'd still have 6 kids, and every chance that she could conceive another one naturally on her own - especially if she waited a little longer after the birth of her last kids. (If her twins are currently 2, then she presumably had the embryos implanted when they were 1 or barely 2. Furthermore, she's presumptively been pregnant or nursing for the entire last seven years. )
I think perhaps there's the idea that much as we respect autonomy, given the enormous burden placed on the health care system by these kinds of pregnancies, they should perhaps be reserved for people who don't have easier, more conventional options.
In some ways this reminds me of the argument over things like organ transplants, where there's the ethical question of whether to prioritize the young and otherwise healthy potential recipients over the elderly and sicker recipients. Barring special circumstances, I'm fine from an ethical perspective in restricting IVF to folks with, say, 2 or fewer children. Of course, I believe in a tightly managed national health care system too.
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orichalcum.livejournal.com at 09:51pm on 31/01/2009![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
If none of the embryos had implanted successfully in this case, what would have been the result? She'd still have 6 kids, and every chance that she could conceive another one naturally on her own - especially if she waited a little longer after the birth of her last kids. (If her twins are currently 2, then she presumably had the embryos implanted when they were 1 or barely 2. Furthermore, she's presumptively been pregnant or nursing for the entire last seven years. )
I think perhaps there's the idea that much as we respect autonomy, given the enormous burden placed on the health care system by these kinds of pregnancies, they should perhaps be reserved for people who don't have easier, more conventional options.
In some ways this reminds me of the argument over things like organ transplants, where there's the ethical question of whether to prioritize the young and otherwise healthy potential recipients over the elderly and sicker recipients. Barring special circumstances, I'm fine from an ethical perspective in restricting IVF to folks with, say, 2 or fewer children. Of course, I believe in a tightly managed national health care system too.