{"id":389,"date":"2010-10-05T14:49:57","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T14:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html"},"modified":"2010-10-05T14:49:57","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T14:49:57","slug":"should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html","title":{"rendered":"Should Emotional Gain Trump Ethical Concerns?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m confused.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Yesterday, Dr. Robert G. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize for his pioneering role in in-vitro fertilization. In many of the news reports I read, including an article for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/05\/health\/research\/05nobel.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=1&amp;sq=nobel%20prize%20ivf&amp;st=cse&amp;scp=2\">New York Times<\/a>, for <a href=\"http:\/\/parenting.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/04\/i-v-f-takes-the-nobel-prize\/\">Motherlode<\/a>, and on NPR (click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=130332188\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=130332035\">here<\/a>), ethical questions were raised in relation to Dr. Edwards&#8217; work. But those ethical questions&#8211;which included the financial cost of IVF, the risks to mother and child for multiple births, the existence of &#8220;preimplantation genetic diagnosis,&#8221; and what to do with the million frozen embryos in the US alone&#8211;were generally dismissed in light of the fact that four million babies have been born due to this technology.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I by no means want to diminish the joy that comes for parents who conceive children through IVF. Nor do I want to say that the ethical concerns cancel out the gift of those children. But it troubles me that with grave ethical concerns about the commodification of human life we rush forward. It troubles me to hear one writer, interviewed on NPR, say with what sounded like a shrug of her shoulders, that if we&#8217;re able to test for a blue-eyed boy, some day we&#8217;ll do that and that&#8217;s the kid who will survive.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The individuals who use IVF generally, I trust, have excellent motives and simply want to start a family. But the cumulative and unintended consequences of those individual actions concern me. I can only hope that we as a culture will start to address the ethics and not just the emotions of this conversation.&nbsp;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m confused.&nbsp; Yesterday, Dr. Robert G. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize for his pioneering role in in-vitro fertilization. In many of the news reports I read, including an article for the New York Times, for Motherlode, and on NPR (click here and here), ethical questions were raised in relation to Dr. Edwards&#8217; work. But&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Should Emotional Gain Trump Ethical Concerns? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should Emotional Gain Trump Ethical Concerns? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m confused.&nbsp; Yesterday, Dr. Robert G. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize for his pioneering role in in-vitro fertilization. In many of the news reports I read, including an article for the New York Times, for Motherlode, and on NPR (click here and here), ethical questions were raised in relation to Dr. Edwards&#8217; work. But&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-05T14:49:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Should Emotional Gain Trump Ethical Concerns? - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Should Emotional Gain Trump Ethical Concerns? - Thin Places","og_description":"I&#8217;m confused.&nbsp; Yesterday, Dr. Robert G. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize for his pioneering role in in-vitro fertilization. In many of the news reports I read, including an article for the New York Times, for Motherlode, and on NPR (click here and here), ethical questions were raised in relation to Dr. Edwards&#8217; work. But&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-10-05T14:49:57+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html","name":"Should Emotional Gain Trump Ethical Concerns? - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-05T14:49:57+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-05T14:49:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/10\/should-emotional-gain-trump-ethical-concerns.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Should Emotional Gain Trump Ethical Concerns?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}