Scientists have announced that a baby boy was born recently to a 42-year-old woman from an embryo frozen 20 years ago. Not surprisingly, the idea of frozen embryos has found instant takers. Its votaries defend it on the ground that it will allow greater freedom to career-oriented women to decide about their pregnancy.
However, there cannot be a more bankrupt idea where the joy of motherhood is postponed for the sake of a career. That's especially the case when medical science shows that greater complications can be associated with late motherhood. Moreover, a society which privileges career over parenthood cannot prosper. Let's not disturb a healthy natural process such as birth. A positive childbirth is not only spiritually more fulfilling, but can also strengthen the mother-child bond. Also, the difference between consuming a medicine and a meal ought to be maintained. In vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer were designed as medical procedures to give infertile couples a chance to establish a pregnancy. What should have been an elective therapy to be used in extraordinary situations is now becoming a norm.
Furthermore, there are ethical questions surrounding the future of leftover embryos. They are living beings that are not implanted but are frozen. How do we dispose of such human lives, which now run into millions in advanced countries like the UK and US? Even worse, the inter-generational donation will complicate and spoil family relations. For instance, how do we cope up with situations when an infertile daughter uses the eggs of her mother to give birth to her own half brother or sister? How would we answer a daughter who questions why she was left frozen as an embryo for decades? It is difficult to evade such ethical and religious questions. Society must make laws regulating this domain.
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