September 15, 1989
The Lance
Page 3
See It
Dr. W.D. White
Two or three times each
year some new technological
medical issue grabs the at
tention of the national me
dia. Then we are repeatedly
told that our science and
technology have outrun our
ethical sense, and that our
only recourse is to turn to the
law to save us from moral
chaos. When regional, racial,
religious, and economic plu
ralisms come to dominate all
fundamental issues in the
life of society, the-resultant
centrifugal forces threaten to
tear all communities apart.
Instinctively, we turn to the
law for help. We do this,
perhaps, because the law is
fundamentally concerned
with procedural rather than
substantive issues. We fre
quently hold the illusion that
when we cannot agree on
material questions, we can at
least find a way to continue
some semblance of commu
nity by respecting proce
dural principles.
There is, of course, some
fundamental truth in this
notion. But we must be care
ful as a society not to expect
too much of the law. We are
discovering that in the same
way technology often prom
ises more than it can deliver,
the law also seems to prom
ise more than it can produce.
The illusion that technology
can save us in our most fun
damental human needs is
analogous to the illusion that
the law can save us from our
moral chaos.
Take the recent publicized
case in Maryville, Tennes
see, of those seven frozen
specks of pre-embryonic
human life. Mary Sue and
Junior Lewis Davis— she, 28,
a service representitive for a
boat company, and he, 30, a
refrigeration technician-
had tried unsuccessfully for
riine years of their marriage
to have children. But Mary
Sue was rendered perma
nently unable to conceive
normally by five tubal preg
nancies requiring surgery.
Like so many other Ameri
cans desf>erate to bear their
own genetic offspring—
thereby assuring their own
immortality? thereby estab
lishing their own sexual and
personal identity? thereby
demonstrating their human
worth?- Mary Sue and Junior
turned to technology to save
them. They went to the Fertil-,
ity Center of East Tennessee
at Knoxville to seek help
through in vitro fertilization.
In vitro fertilization is in
deed for many infertile
couples as it was for the
Davises, the last hope to have
a child carrying the genes of
each parent. There is nothing
inherently unethical about
the use of this procedure. But
again, it is technology that
promises hopeful couples
more than it often can deliver.
It is an expensive, stressful,
invasive, long-shot proce
dure. First, the woman is
given superovilation
hormones to induce her ova
ries to release several ova
during her monthly cycle.
(Nobody knows for sure the
long-range implications of
such treatment). At the right
moment, these ova are surgi
cally extracted— with the ac
companying risks to the
woman— and placed with the
husband’s sperm in a petri
dish.
When the ova are fertilized
and begin to grow and divide,
the couple and the techno
docs have to make a crucial
decision. Given the low suc
cess" rate of implanting fertil
ized ova into the uterine wall,
they must decide how many
of the "pre-embryos" to place
in the woman's uterus- hop
ing that at least one will grow
and develop into a normal
fehis. The decision is usually
made to use three to five.
Sometimes, therefore, preg
nancies develop with twins
or triplets. The largest num
ber of successful implants on
record has been five. Much
more often, the attempt com
pletely fails or ends in miscar
riage. In all this, the woman is
on an emotional roller
coaster of expectation, disap
pointment, hope and often
disillusionment. Many mar
riages cannot survive such
strain.
But what about left-over
fertilized ova, or as they are
called, "pre-embryos?" These
can, of course, be frozen, and
"Specks of Life"
used later for another try at
pregnancy, without putting
the woman at the repeated
risks and costs of superovula
tion and surgery. That is what
the Davises had chosen. They
had tried the in vitro proce
dure six times. Each time it
had failed. IIk v had seven
embryos frozen in liquid
nitrogen at the Fertility Cen
ter to be used in the sr m ath or
eighth attempt.
But the Davises decided to
call it quits on their marriage.
They entered into divorce
proceedings. What i> lo be
done with the frozen em
bryos? And who should de
cide? As a society with no
fundamental moral consen
sus to guide it, we turned to
the law to answer these ques
tions.
The Davises went to court.
Mary Sue wants to use the
embryos to try again to have a
baby. She argues that this is
her last and best chance to be
a mother, and that she should
not have to go through the ex
pensive and dangerous pro
cedures again with another
man. She contends that she
would rear her child as a guished morally and legally
single parent without junior's from the choice to bring a
help or support. child into the world against
But Junior grew up in a the father's will,
broken family, and he thinks Equally problematical is-
that no child should be reared sues are raised in adapting
without both parents. He child custody and adoption
feels that his fundamental laws to a situation so radi-
reproductive rights would be cally different from anything
violated if Mary Sue or any anticipated by these laws,
other woman should give Recently an Australian court
birth to his biological off- gave the frozen embryos of a
spring without his consent, couple killed in a plane crash
He does not want the em- to another infertile couple
bryos destroyed, but he does who remained anonymous,
not want them implanted But in the present case, the
without his consent. "parents" are each still living!
So we tum to the law. This is Some insist that these
a case of first impression. And specks of living matter that
it shows the limitations of the have the potential to become
law in giving us clear moral human life should be de-
and ethical guidance. This
case also suggests the limita
tions of technology in ad
dressing fundamental hu
man problems that IN
VOLVE technology but have
radically significant dimen
sions.
The fundamental human of no fully persuasive ethical
issues raised by this case resolution. We cannot hope
admit of no technological so- ever to return to a general
lution; they equally admit of public consensus concem-
no self-evident and equitable ing the FUNDAMENTAL
legal solution. Some people NATURE OF THESE
argue that the pre-embryos SPECKS OF LIFE.... even
should be viewed as prop- assuming that once we
erty, subject to the usual might have had such an
property divisions that mark agreement. So we tum to the
the settlement of bitter di- law. We ask the law to save
vorce fights. But there is us. Perhaps this is the only
something profoundly hope we have for ordered
counter-intuitive about con- liberty-that in a society with
ceiving of even specks of po- no fundamental common
tential human life merely as rnoral commitments, we
"things" to be bought, sold, must leam to respect the
divided, like any other prop- autonomy of others. And
grty. when these autonomies
Others want to invoke tra- dash, we must accept that
ditional family law as it gov- power of law to establish
ems abortion, adoption, and procedures that protect us
child custody. Rowe vs Wade brute power,
gave the mother unilateral expect the
choice to seek an abortion, remove moral ambi-
despite any objection from reduce the irre-
the father; but surely the tragedy at the heart
choice to abort a fetus against existence,
the father’s will can be distin-
stroyed. Others want to use
them for experimental pur
poses, in basic embryonic
research. But neither of these
options meets with wide
spread public approval.
What we have here is a
human dilemma that admits