An Illinois judge has ruled that a frozen embryo in vitro is a human being, and therefore the parents of the pre-born can sue over his or her wrongful death in a fertility lab mixup.
The practice of artificial procreation is on an ethical collision course with itself. If the would-be parents get to sue the lab for the wrongful death of one, who’s to be held responsible for the wrongful deaths of the equally human siblings: the eight rejected for implantation and discarded with the couple’s consent?
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Yep, this one is going to be interesting.
this is great news! I hope!
These little conundrums are precisely why you guys have been nominated for Best Group Blog in the 2005 Catholic Blog Awards. Congrats!
“they” are probably going to burn this judget at the stake. God bless him.
I’m afraid that while in a sense, this may be a step forward, especially in a State where another judge has ruled that humanhood doesn’t begin until the cord is cut, it is still the principle from Roman law, PC’d into materfamilias. We need to return to the common law this country had from its beginning.
“If the would-be parents get to sue the lab for the wrongful death of one, who’s to be held responsible for the wrongful deaths of the equally human siblings: the eight rejected for implantation and discarded with the couple’s consent?”
Nobody, of course. They don’t count as human, because they weren’t wanted.