When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled on 16 February that the frozen fetus was accidentally destroyed in an Alabama fertility clinic, there were protected humans under the law of wrong death, Republic leaders from across the country claimed their support for the in-vitro fertilization (IVF), by which those embryos were created.
But this support, even though honest, it is difficult to reconcile with the attitude that human embryos are really a person with full moral rights, an attitude that these are the same leader, and most Republicans, spying for a long time.
If fetal humans are humans, is the fertility clinics and their customers really have the right to make them in surplus, freeze them, and to store most of them indefinitely, once a given customer has not intended to achieve the desired number of successful pregnancies from the process? The logic of this enterprise makes the final destruction of the fetus all but indispensable. The more consistent Republicans understand the full implications of the court’s verdict and are evident about their desire to eliminate IVF treatments, either through lump sum restrictions or most infiltration of rules.
Some Republicans have tried here, claiming that the fetus not be “viable” until it is implemented in one womb. This is a surprising concession: if viability requires implantation, and there is no human (or wrong death) before viability, a human embryo is not internal internal entitled to characteristics that make it a person with rights. Its viability and its personality depends on the person’s support from the body that carries it. This seems to be on obstacles with the idea, so prominent in anti-miscarriage rhetoric, that a fetus has a moral position in the moral state of what it is internal.
It also trades on a blasphemy redistribution of “viability”. If a new transplanted embryo is “viable”, a frozen one stored in an IVF clinic is frozen. If some options are made and relevant biological processes occur without any phenomenon, both may develop for maturity. This appeal for “viability” is an oral dodge, and perhaps an attempt to eliminate the established meaning of the concept in the discussion of reproductive freedom.
Generally, “viability” states whether the fetus can survive outside the womb. It is a standard that most Republicans (or, at least, Republican leaders) have flatly rejected to determine that abortion is when moral and legally acceptable. Appealing for viability in terms of IVF is probably for proper sound, but it also works to co-opt a concept that has a very different meaning. In the general sense of the word, neither frozen nor newly transplanted embryos are viable, nor are the embryos of the early period. But it has not prevented the Republican from restricting the initial period abortion.
Following the court’s decision, Nikki Haley -Always trying to say what she thinks that she hopes to quickly confirm that she considers frozen fetus as children. Then, when asked about the implications of this condition for IVF, she retreated to some vague instability, which is well shown that many Republicans are facing, as it is difficult to see any consistent logic to restrict abortion, but allows IVF.
It is easy to sympathize with the plaintiff in the court case, the couples whose fetus were accidentally destroyed. It seems laudable that they may claim losses against the reproductive clinic. But assuming that they give importance to the freedom of searching and achieving IVF, they should have thought twice before starting a suit of wrong death on a basis that can only work to reduce that much freedom.
Darryl Right is the professor of philosophy and chairman of the Department of Humanities, Department of Social Sciences and President of Arts at Harvey Mud College, Clairemont. He specializes in moral and political philosophy.