Yesterday, Dr. Robert G. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize for his pioneering role in in-vitro fertilization. In many of the news reports I read, including an article for the New York Times, for Motherlode, and on NPR (click here and here), ethical questions were raised in relation to Dr. Edwards’ work. But those ethical questions–which included the financial cost of IVF, the risks to mother and child for multiple births, the existence of “preimplantation genetic diagnosis,” and what to do with the million frozen embryos in the US alone–were generally dismissed in light of the fact that four million babies have been born due to this technology.

I by no means want to diminish the joy that comes for parents who conceive children through IVF. Nor do I want to say that the ethical concerns cancel out the gift of those children. But it troubles me that with grave ethical concerns about the commodification of human life we rush forward. It troubles me to hear one writer, interviewed on NPR, say with what sounded like a shrug of her shoulders, that if we’re able to test for a blue-eyed boy, some day we’ll do that and that’s the kid who will survive. 

The individuals who use IVF generally, I trust, have excellent motives and simply want to start a family. But the cumulative and unintended consequences of those individual actions concern me. I can only hope that we as a culture will start to address the ethics and not just the emotions of this conversation.