For no particular reason, I found myself thinking last night about frozen embryos and being pro-life. I am, you know, although I'm not in favor of making abortions illegal, but that's solely because do-it-yourself measures will led to more life losses. As I'm sure you could guess from my entry partially about snowflake adoptions, I'm not in favor of using embryos for stem cell research either. Especially when umbilical stem cells are already being used in therapeutic ways, while the applications of embryonic stem cells remain largely theoretical.

I don't think it's responsible to create the embryos and leave them to languish, either, however. If I were to have a complete change of heart about motherhood and for some reason use IVF myself, I would not create embryos that I never intended to use. Meaning that I would feel obligated to have all the embryos, at least those that are healthy, implanted at one time or another (not all at once if there were more than 4, obviously, given I don't believe in selective reduction either), which would mean limiting the number used for fertilization. Having been created and having a spark of life forced into them deserves giving them the opportunity to develop into babies. Most wouldn't, given how poor the odds are, but why would some be more deserving of an opportunity to possibly become people than others? I suppose this isn't a typical attitude, but it's how I feel. I can't quite grasp why others don't feel that way, but everyone's different, I guess.

Surplus ova, on the other hand, I'd readily donate to science in order for them to perfect freezing techniques, which are light years behind being able to store both sperm and embryos. Ova that haven't been fertilized are no more likely to become babies than a bag of flour in a cabinet is going to become a cake on its own, so there's no moral issue there.