Reproductive Technology

Many couples can't concieve natuarally, this is because of various reason...

- Some women can't produce eggs (blocked or damaged fallopian tubes)

-Some women are just prone to miscarry

-Some men cannot produce healthy sperm

In Virto Fertilisationis where a womans eggs are fertlised outside of the body usually in a petry dish.

For IVF you need sperm , eggs and a healthy uterus but any of these can come from a donor.

- You can use donated eggs ( the women who gives birth to the child won't be the genetic parent of the child. Or donated sperm (though themale won't be the geneticparent either).

- If the women is unable to carry the baby then the fertilised egg can be inserted into a surogettes womb and she can carry and give birth to it.

There are ethical and practical reasons against it

- Theres an argument that it's just not natural - if you can't have a child it's meant to be.

- In IVF not all of the fertilised eggs are put back into the women . So there is an issue of that throwing away these extra fertilised eggs  is denying life which is morally wrong.

-IVF increases the chances of having twins. This is dangerous for the mothers health and possibly a financial burden to the parents.

-There's a chance that the surrogate mother doesn't want to give up the child.

During IVF it is possible that you can remove a cell from each embryo and analyse its genes.

The possibility (in theory) that the parents could choose some of their babies characteristics ( by choosing to not have certain embryos implanted) worries some people as things could get complicated.

- Parents are allowed to have their embryos screenedfor certain genetic disorders . This is legal.

- Parents are also allowed to test for 'tissue matches'if they have a sick child and a new child could provide tissue for an implant. This is most controversial as these babies are considered as 'spare part factories'. Others argue that if the parents want another child anyway then whats the harm?

- At the moment it's illegall to choose the sex of your baby except in exceptional circumstances (if theres a family history of a gender percific disease for example). Some people argue this is a start of a slippery slope. Unbalanced population would occur if people could choose the sex. But then this would lead to choosing such things as haircolour and intelligence etc. This could lead to discrimination against children who havent had their genes altered.