MORAL MAZE Babies from a test tube? In Vitro Fertilisation, more commonly known as IVF, is a process that has been around for over 30 years with the first successful pregnancy and birth of a “test tube baby” being in 1978 by Robert G. Edwards, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2010. As well as the amazing things that IVF can do for a family there are still many ethical issues surrounding this medical wonder. I’m sure many of you have heard about IVF and other new methods of falling pregnant but do you actually know what it involves and what the risks are? The process of IVF happens when an egg is fertilised by sperm outside of the body. The fertilised egg (zygote) is then transferred back into the uterus of the patient, hopefully resulting in a successful pregnancy. This process can help many infertile couples when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed. IVF can also be used with donor eggs to assist same sex couples and single individuals. During the process of IVF the freezing and often discarding of unused embryos is usually included. This raises many issues for individual, cultural or religious reasons. For many, an embryo constitutes a life and the freezing or discarding of any life, if it it is seen as such, is obviously controversial, if not considered downright wrong, a sin even. Another topic highly debated is the chance of multiple pregnancies when using IVF and what results because of this. When multiple births are an option, many people choose to have a partial abortion so as to only have one child. Even if you don’t have to choose or don’t have a partial abortion the process of embryo freezing most likely results in some discarded embryos. This could be argued to be complete disregard for and abuse of the miracle of life. Another issue is the chance of a laboratory mix-up, including mislabeled gametes or the transferring of the wrong embryos to a woman’s womb. This happened to a woman in California who received the embryo of another couple and was only notified of this mistake after the birth of her son. This case did, however, lead to many authorities and individual clinics implementing procedures to minimise the risk of such mix-ups. The HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority), for example, requires clinics to use a double witnessing system, where the identity of a specimen must be checked by two people at each point in the specimen’s transferal. The ethical question however is, if this is not an absolutely failsafe process, how can it be allowed? The chances of a mix up, if at all possible, lead to the most complicated of situations - a woman carrying another couple’s child. It is understandable that toying with nature in this way can raise serious dilemmas for many people. An error such as the above is indeed frightening to contemplate and so, many do feel that it is not the place of medicine to play God, especially in the field of reproduction. There are also many risks concerned with IVF treatment that can result in abnormalities and life long illnesses. In 2000 Keeden was born following IVF treatment and shortly after suffered a massive stroke resulting in loosing the ability to ever walk, talk or go to the toilet. Keeden suffers from a rare blood clotting condition knows as antithrombin deficiency and his parents were not told that there was a 50 per cent chance that their child could have this defective gene. Keeden’s mother says about this: ''We love Keeden now that he's here, but if we had the right information and the right options we wouldn't have gone ahead with the birth, not in the way we did,'' Although this process can positively change someone’s life it can also dramatically change someone’s life not always for the better. A major ethical issue is the concern that people will try to change the traits of their unborn children using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Many people object to the argument that the doctors and parents are trying to ‘play God’ but in effect, toying with Nature in this way does suggest that the argument has some truth. Even setting to one side the process of picking the traits of the un-born child there is the process of finding the embryos that are most likely to succeed to this end, that results in the discarding of “bad” embryos. Should humans really be allowed to choose the ‘type’ of life produced? Another frequent objection is against women who are healthy and able to naturally conceive who freeze their embryos and delay pregnancy until a more convenient time. This process is usually used for when someone is about to undergo a treatment for a serious illness, for example, chemotherapy. But this treatment has been abused in the past as some people believe that the younger the embryo the more successful it will be, allowing a person to see through their career for example, until it is convenient for them to have a child conceived when they were younger and healthier. I think that IVF is an extraordinary process, which has allowed thousands of people all across the world to achieve things that otherwise would never be possible. Knowing someone who has gone through the process of IVF, I couldn’t imagine the world without the person who came from this process. My auntie underwent the process of IVF as a single mother with donor sperm and now has a two-year-old son. He hangs off me as I write this very article and it makes me think about how many people across the globe are blessed with this gift of life from this amazing technology. While there are questions raised by the procedure and issues that should be controlled very carefully in my opinion, there are also plenty of people in the world who get pregnant without thinking or caring that much about what they are doing. It seems to me that the processes and journey a person has to go through to have a child by IVF (my own auntie filled in a huge number of forms and underwent psychological testing before she was allowed to undertake the process) makes IVF less of an issue in many ways than unconsidered or badly motivated natural pregnancies. My niece wrote this piece for her Religious Education Assignment - needless to say I am so proud of her fantastic intelligent and eloquent pros and then I cried and cried and cried at her beautiful words about Sonny and I.