>> We know with certainty that IVF is gravely immoral.
Can you expand? Are you making the claim that normal ivf is either immoral or illicit? Based on religious grounds, or actual discussable morality?
There are many ethical discussions to be had about research and potential genetic manipulation, but I'm not aware of any general "we" that believes IVF is immoral, other than orthodoxly religious. I'm eager to be enlightened otherwise!
As an atheist, I can say that I have misgivings about it myself. At minimum, the true need for IVF is quite small compared to its demand, where it is used as a crutch by people who only came to need it after making poor decisions most of their lives.
The biggest, would be waiting too long to attempt procreation. No one should be having kids in highschool, but if you're in your late 40s and only getting around to it at that point... waited too long.
Questionable lifestyles with all their ill health implications would be a close second.
I don't know that I could give you dozens of distinct reasons, but I bet I could fill out a top 5 pretty easy.
> and what/who gets to evaluate or define a "true need"?
Let's be objective here. If, through no fault of your own, you are sterile and childless and if technology makes it possible to effectively reverse that, then though it may not be ideal it is acceptable. Though far too late for the victims, those who were forcibly sterilized decades ago would have qualifed. Someone with some congenital issue maybe. Possibly those who have suffered peculiar accidents (more likely for men than women?).
> It's rare to see a truly and honestly non-religious opposition to reproductive aids,
If we're talking about people I care about, relatives of mine or not, I would want those children to have a true and genuine human experience. "Mommy couldn't bother to get around to making you before her ovaries shriveled up, and so Dr. Frankenbaby cooked you up in a test tube and gestated you inside GMO-gestation livestock" isn't that.
The only thing that gives me pause is that, generally speaking, I don't care about any of you. This will make it easier to think of the vast bulk of humanity as things, rather than people.
> If, through no fault of your own, you are sterile and childless and if technology makes it possible to effectively reverse that
In the modern Western economy, it's pretty easy to find oneself not financially able to sustain a family until one is in one's early forties. I'd say people "waiting too long" are meeting your criteria.
> I would want those children to have a true and genuine human experience. "Mommy couldn't bother to get around to making you before her ovaries shriveled up, and so Dr. Frankenbaby cooked you up in a test tube and gestated you inside GMO-gestation livestock" isn't that.
For what it's worth... I gestated a bit too long and wouldn't biologically come out. Nearly died. Was "from my mother's womb untimely ripp'd," as the Bard might put it. Me and about 32% of other American births.
None of this bothers me, of course, because I don't remember any of it. I don't have any memories until about the time I was verbal. So my lack of having the true and genuine human experience of passing through a vagina into a waiting nurse or OB-GYN's arms hasn't really been, you know... An issue. For me or the other 32% of living Americans.
I'd counsel against putting hard limits on what makes for "a true and genuine human experience." This deeply unnatural technology of the Caesarean section has allowed me and millions of others a chance at life, as well as decreasing the maternal death rate drastically. If gestation in whatever a "GMO-gestation livestock" is provided even more people a chance at life... Who cares?
Such limits are also a good way to miss the awesome breadth of what the human experience is. It's a pretty wide thing. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
> In the modern Western economy, it's pretty easy to find oneself not financially able to sustain a family until one is in one's early forties. I'd say people "waiting too long" are meeting your criteria.
In Africa, there's someone who lives on $10/month. It's not stopping them. When you talk about "being financially able to sustain a family", I get the impression you're talking about getting a purebred dog with a pedigree, because you want a pet but it can't be just any... "has to be perfect".
> So my lack of having the true and genuine human experience of passing through a vagina
No one cares about that, least of all I.
If you think it's comparable to what some people dream of though, well, I don't know what to say. Be grateful for your lack of imagination and its protective properties to the manmade horrors beyond comprehension heading our way.
> In Africa, there's someone who lives on $10/month. It's not stopping them.
Very true. How far does $10 a month go in the United States?
> No one cares about that, least of all I.
Not true. There are still people who consider cesarean section to be unnatural birth. There are still people who consider IVF to be unnatural birth. And I don't doubt that whatever "horrors" come our way, there will be people who consider being born that way an unnatural way of being until every third person they meet came into the world that way.
> The biggest, would be waiting too long to attempt procreation. No one should be having kids in highschool, but if you're in your late 40s and only getting around to it at that point... waited too long.
The whole point of the article is that they are working on a technology that might obviate that particular concern.
> Questionable lifestyles with all their ill health implications would be a close second.
What does this mean? I can see an argument for wanting people to be around for their kids to grow up, but there are many risky or unhealthy behaviors that don’t harm your ability to have kids. I don’t see any particular reason to assume that having kids earlier will lead to better health outcomes (I mean there are obvious alternatives we can imagine; someone could get an advanced degree, which is correlated to a longer lifespan).
> The whole point of the article is that they are working on a technology that might obviate that particular concern.
My whole point is that if you're saying "sure, you made poor life decisions, your ovaries shriveled up" but we can cook up a Frankenbaby for you, then maybe this isn't the solution to a problem, but a problem compounding on itself.
> What does this mean? I
I don't know how much more plainly I can put it. There are any number of chronic health conditions that lead to reduced fertility, those that are either caused by poor decisions, or exacerbated by them.
> but there are many risky or unhealthy behaviors that don’t harm your ability to have kids.
They might not make you 100% infertile, but they tick up whatever number you're at by some fraction of a percentage.
> I don’t see any particular reason to assume that having kids earlier will lead to better health outcomes
Having better health can make having them naturally a little more probable.
At 65 the woman wanted more kids even though she had already had 13 before those 4 if i understood the article correctly. As far as i understand german doctors would not let her do an IVF but in ukraine she found a doctor. It seems they went above and beyond the usual numbers of embryos to guarantee she would get pregnant.
Well, this person hasn’t said it shouldn’t be allowed, they’ve explicitly walked it back to saying that most people don’t have a “true need” for IVF, and have made other bad lifestyle choices.
Which seems weird and judgmental, but it doesn’t necessarily have to come from a religious place.
It is hard to speculate about people’s beliefs without putting words in their mouth. But generally people can use all sorts of things (evolutionary biology, economics, whatever) to justify themselves.
2. Jesus Christ was not a historical person, but wholly fabricated.
3. I could not find it within myself to lie about these truths, even if it forfeited my life. I would struggle to lie about it even if it forfeited the lives of loved ones.
4. Should I somehow be wrong on any of these points, then a deity that would torture me for eternity for the intellectual mistake of disbelief is in fact a devil and is my enemy which I would have wished I was clever enough to have recognized, so that I could wage war against it.
Not the OP or GP either :-) but while I agree that literally everybody has internal morals, by definition; there is such a huge correlation in western society between religion and opposition to reproductive rights / aids, that I can understand the question even if not the snarky tone.
I've seen very few (not zero but close) non-religious ethical systemic discussions against reproductive aids. As I said in another comment though,I'm eager to learn!
Can you expand? Are you making the claim that normal ivf is either immoral or illicit? Based on religious grounds, or actual discussable morality?
There are many ethical discussions to be had about research and potential genetic manipulation, but I'm not aware of any general "we" that believes IVF is immoral, other than orthodoxly religious. I'm eager to be enlightened otherwise!