IVF embryos WILL NOT just “die anyway”

FACT:
Most IVF embryos are designated for implantation, and the rest can be adopted.
 

FACT:
Only 2.8% of embryos in IVF clinics, roughly 11,000, have been designated by their parents for research.  More than 90% of embryos stored in IVF clinics are saved for later use by parents or donated to other infertile couples for implantation.
(RAND Law and Health Initiative)
 

FACT:
Less than 275 stem cell lines would be created from the small portion of the 400,000 embryos currently in IVF storage that have been made available for research.
(RAND Law and Health Initiative)
 

FACT:
IVF embryos can be adopted or simply donated by their biological parents to infertile couples:  96 adoptions so far by one agency and many more have been born through embryo donation.
In 1995, about 500,000 women were seeking to adopt a child.
(Snowflakes Embryo Adoption; The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute)
 

FACT:
Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research will create an incentive to create and kill more human embryos for stem cells, which will lead to a U.S. human embryo farm industry.
 

FACT:
There is an ethical alternative to killing these embryos:  Adult and cord blood stem cells are treating patients of over 58 diseases.
 

Even if they are going to be discarded anyway (which they are not), and even if there was no ethical alternative (which there is), it would still be morally wrong to kill these human embryos for experimentation. 

From the Nuremberg Code to the Belmont Commission, this utilitarian justification for harmful or fatal research has been soundly rejected in order to protect patients and the practice of medicine. Civilized cultures have protections in place to make sure we do not allow research on, or use organs from, death row prisoners who are “going to die anyway,” and we do not do research on terminally ill patients unless such research has a chance to help the patient. We take a great risk if we dehumanize human embryos and accept “they are going to die anyway” as how we judge what is acceptable treatment for our fellow human beings.     

Examples of atrocities “but they are going to die anyway” would justify:

-         Harvesting organs from and experimenting on death row inmates (like China).

-         Harvesting organs from and experimenting on the terminally ill.

-         Submerging 15 live human unborn children into salt solution to learn if they could absorb oxygen through their skin. One fetus survived for 22 hours. (actual US case)