Robert Edwards, IVF/"test-tube baby" pioneer, has
won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. From the official press release:
As early as the 1950s, Edwards had the vision that IVF could be
useful as a treatment for infertility. He worked systematically to
realize his goal, discovered important principles for human
fertilization, and succeeded in accomplishing fertilization of human
egg cells in test tubes (or more precisely, cell culture dishes). His
efforts were finally crowned by success on 25 July, 1978, when the
world's first "test tube baby" was born. During the following years,
Edwards and his co-workers refined IVF technology and shared it with
colleagues around the world.
Approximately four million
individuals have so far been born following IVF. Many of them are now
adult and some have already become parents.
Four million lives created! Not quite
Norman Borlaug numbers, but I sit in awe of Robert Edwards nonetheless. In my dream world, he'll one day read my ode to assisted reproductive technology in
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. In case he's reading, here's my favorite part:
When Apple first announced the iPhone, the world was thrilled. My colleague Russ Roberts named it "the most
beautiful toy yet," and enthused, "Apple hits a home run. No, a grand slam.
Actually, a five-run homer, the kind you're not supposed to try to hit." Two months after the iPhone's release,
however, users were out for blood.
Apple's crime: Cutting the price by $200. This is how we normally greet progress - an
exciting honeymoon, followed by constant ingratitude.
For reproductive progress, strangely, our reactions reverse:
We skip the honeymoon, but gradually learn to love it. New advances initially horrify both public
and pundits. The public shakes its head;
pundits split hairs to prove that the latest technology is an unprecedented
affront to human dignity. Governments
often answer their repugnance with regulation and bans. Yet before long, entrepreneurs dig a bunch of
loopholes, and a new market blossoms. A
decade or two later, public and pundits forget they ever objected - yet
consumers of the once "repugnant" services feel grateful every time their
miracle children blow out the candles on another birthday cake.
Critics often belittle the users of new reproductive
technology as narcissistic or selfish.
But why is a person who turns to science any more selfish than someone
who gets pregnant the old-fashioned way?
Still, the critics accidentally make a useful point: Selfishly speaking,
reproductive technology makes it easier to get the children we want. Kids who wouldn't have been worth having in
1950 are often worth having today. Technological
progress is another selfish reason to have more kids.
When
I hail these benefits for parents, critics often accuse me of moral
blindness. How can I neglect the welfare
of the children created by artificial
means? But I'm not "neglecting" children's
welfare. I just find it painfully
obvious that being alive is good for them.
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Yeah, I basically agree, but would add the caveats:
i) The total social gain from the IVF treatment option is somewhat diminished by the loss to children who would otherwise be adopted. I don't know if this number is large or negligibly small, but it's worth considering.
ii) You don't have to be traditionally pro-life to think that the many embryos destroyed in the IVF process represent some kind of significant cost. Of course, it's a highly philosophical matter whether or not you want to count their destruction as a loss.
I'd add more to the IVF numbers; we had IVF twins, after a long time trying, and instantly afterwards got pregnant again. I think the first (IVF birth) kind of cleared the cobwebs, so to speak.
@rapscallion, adopted vs. unadopted pales, imho, in comparison to life vs. death. at least 1000:1.
As for the embryos, if they weren't harvested for IVF, they would almost certainly have died with their host. To mourn their premature loss would be to posit that 50 years spent as an unused egg is utility-generating for the egg.
Am I the only one surprised that the numbers of IVF births isn't larger?
So to what degree does this hold true? How bad do conditions have to get before 'being alive' isn't enough?
I remember one EconTalk where this argument was used in defense of eating animals. (Not that I don't eat animals, I just don't think this argument supports that activity.)
Let me give the extreme example, let's say I could buy a fetus on the open market. Let's say it was scheduled for scientific use and would otherwise not have become a 'human'. Let's say I could grow it in a test tube, to full growth.
What are the limits of use then?
Slavery? Surely being alive for 60 years as a slave is better than not living at all, right? Isn't that 'painfully obvious'?
Cannibalism? Surely being alive for 20 years is better than not living at all, right? Isn't that 'painfully obvious'? What if it was shorter? 10 years? What if it were only 1 year of life? Isn't that better than no life at all?
At what point does the economist's 'painfully obvious' calculation become 'obviously painful'?
-p_a
Yes, there's also an interesting libertarian twist. When the British government tried to quash the research, a private donor stepped in to keep it going. The Nobel press release notes:
"These early studies were promising but the Medical Research Council decided not to fund a continuation of the project. However, a private donation allowed the work to continue."
hi, it is rightly said that "whatever the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve". Robert Edwards has achieved whatever he had conceived in his mind. well done ... sir, many many thanks
It's not just that IVF diminishes the number of adoptions.
The well-publicized availability of IVF surely causes many women to delay marriage and many couples to delay childbearing during the years of greatest fertility.
Ultimately, such delays leave IVF as the only option. And it frequently doesn't "work."
Caplan insists there are more net births as a result of IVF's ability. He commits the fundamental fallacy identified by Bastiat long ago -- he ignores the evidence of what isn't seen.