Those opposing preimplantation genetic diagnosis for the above purpose may, however, have concerns that go beyond the welfare interests of the future child. David King explains “Why We Should Not Permit Embryos to be Selected as Tissue Donors.” He believes that the practice objectifies the child and turns it into a mere tool. This contradicts, he says, the basic Kantian ethical principle that human beings must always be treated as ends, and never merely as a means to an end. Even if the future child will be a much‐loved member of the family, we ought to resist the temptation to allow the selection of embryos as tissue donors because it is yet another step in the objectification of humans and “and the consequences of doing so are … disastrous.”
But is the maxim that we must never regard others solely as a means to an end infringed if the tissue‐matched child is loved and cherished in its own right, as an end? Kant’s maxim provides, as King correctly notes, a plausible account of what is wrong with slavery, but its implication in the present context is far less clear. People generally have children for a variety of reasons: they want a sister for “Ann,” a companion for their old age, a son to continue the blood line, and so on. If tissue‐matching of embryos to save another child were ruled out by the Kantian maxim, would this not also perhaps rule out many other widely accepted reasons for having children as well?
In allowing tissue‐matching of embryos, we are, King holds, proceeding down a slippery slope toward some very bad societal consequences. Critics of this kind of argument might question, however, whether the bad consequences at the bottom of the slope are truly bad, or as bad as they are made out to be. They may also ask whether the slope is really so slippery and if sound laws and public policies would not arrest any possible slide.
For many people reproductive human cloning is one of the bad consequences that lie at the bottom of the slippery slope. When the existence of the sheep “Dolly” (the first mammal to owe its existence to somatic cell nuclear transfer, or cloning) was announced in 1997, there was swift world‐wide reaction. People feared that the cloning of humans would not be far away. Only 24 hours after the world knew of Dolly’s existence, a bill outlawing human cloning was announced in New York State, and a few days later, then US President Clinton banned federal funding for research into it.
Michael Tooley examines this issue in “The Moral Status of Human Cloning: Neo‐Lockean Persons versus Human Embryos.” In earlier editions of this Anthology, we included an article by the same author, first published in 1998. In that earlier article, Tooly distinguished between the questions of whether reproductive human cloning is in principle morally acceptable and whether it is acceptable at the present time, given current scientific knowledge and understanding. He then reached the conclusion that the practice was acceptable in principle, but morally problematic, given the state of knowledge at the time. In this new article, specially written for this volume, Tooley notes more recent research that makes it less likely that cloning from an adult would produce a person with reduced life expectancy. In this and other ways, his conclusion is now more open to the acceptability of human reproductive cloning, both in principle and in practice, than it was in his earlier article.
5 The McCaughey Septuplets God's Will or Human Choice?1
Gregory Pence
In 1997, American media rejoiced that all seven of the McCaugheys' fetuses made it to birth and seemed healthy. Yet for all the coverage of that story, rarely did the darkerv truth emerge. Call me a curmudgeon, but something is wrong here.
We often over‐generalize from well‐publicized cases (e.g., after the 1986 Baby M case, some states banned commercial surrogacy). In France since 1982 – where couples sometimes pursue pregnancy with religious zeal because each new baby garners a bonus from the government – use of fertility drugs has increased tenfold the number of triplets and the number of quadruplets, thirtyfold.
Some complain about the costs to society of so many babies in one birth, and true, the gestation, birth, and special care of the septuplets probably cost a cool million dollars. Others complain that the human uterus did not evolve to bear litters and that large multiple births are unnatural. Still others wonder what toll this extraordinary gestation had on mother McCaughey's body and health.
These are important matters, but they strike me as morally secondary. Costs can be absorbed by being spread over millions of payers, and what is unnatural in one era becomes normal in the next (witness anesthesia). And if Mrs McCaughey made an informed choice, she was free to risk injuring her body in childbirth as she saw fit.
Still others wonder if these two parents could really nurture each of the septuplets. Would you want to grow up with one‐seventh of the attention you got from your dad? Did the McCaugheys have the time, energy, and money to nourish each child’s full potential?
My real concern is about what is best for the children. This couple took the fertility drug Pergonal, conceived seven embryos, refused to reduce any (abort), and then said that any results were “God's will.” In doing so, they risked the lives and health of their babies. They took bad odds and hoped that all seven would be healthy. In so doing, they took the risk of having seven disabled, or even seven dead, babies.
Pause a minute and consider the “frame” or background assumptions of how the media presents multiple births: often it’s in the language of “miracles,” “blessings” and “heroic” parents. But consider my experience once in China during their one‐child‐only decades: on a public bus, a woman then entered who had just given birth to her second child: the other mothers on the bus quickly shamed her: “How could you be so selfish? Your new child will take food from mine. Why were you so irresponsible?” Imagine what the same women would say to Mrs McCaughey for creating septuplets when she already had one child.
Multiple‐birth babies are: usually premature (each may weigh less than two pounds), three times as likely as single babies to be severely handicapped at birth, and often spend months in neonatal intensive care units. In the womb with multiple pregnancies, nutrients and oxygenated blood are scarce (a uterine lifeboat, if you will), so not all the fetuses will likely emerge healthy. To prevent disabilities resulting from deprivation in utero, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine recommends gestating only one embryo at a time.
It seems to me irresponsible to say, as the McCaugheys did, that it would be God's will if any turned out blind, crippled, or dead. If God was clear about anything to them, it was that they should not have kids.
If you take a fertility drug, and if too many embryos conceive, you should be willing to reduce the embryos for the good of the children born. You shouldn't run the risk of severely‐disabled kids, and say, if harm happens, that it's “God's will.” Be honest and say it’s a grave risk you decided to take.
And what about the older sister of the McCaughey septuplets? Was her role in childhood only to help her mother raise the famous septs? Did she have any choice?
In 1985, Mormons Patti and Sam Frustaci conceived septuplets. Informed of the risks of disability and urged to reduce, they refused. Four of their seven babies died, and the three survivors had severe disabilities, including cerebral palsy. The Frustacis then sued their physicians.
In 1996 in England, Mandy Allwood conceived seven embryos at once. Offered a large cash bonus by a tabloid for exclusive rights if all made it to term, Mandy announced she would not reduce any and go for maximal births. As a result, she lost all of them.
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