A few years ago, the American couple Angel and Jeff Watts, who do not have children, decided to undergo IVF treatment. During the procedure, 10 embryos are formed. 4 of these embryos are used and the family has two twin children. They think about what will happen to the remaining six embryos, and the couple announce on social media that they have 6 "unused" healthy embryos that they want to donate to a couple without children. As USA Today reports, the announcement reads: “…we have 6 good quality embryos frozen at 6 days old to donate to a wonderful couple.”
Sounds weird doesn't it? Like an advertisement for discounted shampoo or olive oil… Moreover, embryos are presented as “durable consumer goods”. The following statement is included in a BBC report: "According to the NEDC (National Embryo Donation Centre), frozen embryos have an indefinite shelf life."
Strange as it may sound, this is one of the questions discussed in the context of “IVF: In-Vitro Fertilization”: What happens to unused embryos?
According to a report by the BBC in 2020, there are currently 1 million unused embryos in the USA. These can be frozen and given to another person or couple to have a child with the consent of the parents. For example, an embryo frozen last year, in 1992, was born exactly 27 years later.
The diversity of opportunities provided by biotechnology for reproduction is enormous. A few years ago, a woman in America gave birth to her own child (in other words, her own grandchild) by surrogacy. Australian doctor David Molloy announced in 2018 that women could have “fatherless” children within 20 years. The development that enabled this was experienced in China. Doctors used a half-chromosomal stem cell from a “female mouse” to get another "female mouse" to become pregnant and give birth to a healthy birth. Doctors tried the same method on "male" mice, but the born mouse did not survive.
“Post-death reproduction,” on the other hand, allows a man to become a father years after he dies. The scientific name of the method is posthumous reproduction. Reproduction is translated as "reproduction", but the concept of "production" there also means production. What's happening is actually production, in a way. The Turkish Language Association (TDK) defines the concept of production as “creating a new good or service as a result of certain activities and transactions, production, anti-consumption”. TDK defines reproduction as a biological concept as "the reproduction of living things with the seed that emerges from the union of the sexual cells or the spores they form directly". The main difference between production and reproduction lies in the number, functions and degree of agency. In reproduction, the agent does not have a structurally transformative power over natural possibilities, but rather acts as an intermediary. On the other hand, production is the process of adding, subtracting, duplicating, etc. to the perpetrator(s) on the raw material. It provides the opportunity to transform by providing executive power in various ways. Therefore, while reproduction is a biological concept, production is more of an economic activity. However, as I said, the opportunities provided by biotechnology allow a third person to be involved in the reproductive activity, to control and transform the reproductive process to a certain extent. The concept of “liquid microchipbabies” exemplifies just that. In this method, briefly, while the sperms that are left inside the microchip consisting of micro channels pass through the channels, the DNA structures with the smoothest, healthiest and most mobile shapes can cross the channels and the egg is fertilized with the sperm cell that crosses the channels. In a way, "artificial selection" is being done. Therefore, today it is treated as a commodity open to human physical intervention, on which initiative can be used on “sperm, egg and embryo”. The development of biotechnological interventions in reproductive processes also raises the "design babies" debate. As a matter of fact, in 2018, He Jiankuli's changing the DNA of twin girls born by in vitro fertilization treatment in China was reported with the headline "The world's first genetically designed babies were born in China".
Moreover, the world's first "three-parent" child was born in recent years. The news on the BBC was titled "A baby with three parents was born with a new birth technique". Doctors took some of the mother's DNA and combined it with another woman's mitochondria to produce a healthy egg. They then fertilized this egg with the father's sperm. Since the born child carries the genetic material of another person other than his own parents, experts say that the baby has three parents.
After all, biotechnology offers a reproductive opportunity where the father is not involved. However, the mother's body/womb is still necessary for the birth of the child. But I think soon the mother will be excluded from the reproductive process. Because the artificial womb studies are continuing at the moment. In the Netherlands, gynecologists and designers announced to the BBC two years ago that they started the artificial womb work for prematurely born children, and that the project would take 5 years. "Because this way women won't have to worry about morning sickness or body changes," says project team member Lisa Mademaker of the artificial womb work. Also, this might be interesting to many, for example, you might think of gay men. There is a belief in society that natural reproduction is ideal. Natural reproduction is not the only way.”
Similar studies are being done in the USA. In 2017, doctors at Philadelphia Children's Hospital kept premature lambs alive in an artificial womb. It was stated by the doctors that the project is planned to be tested in humans within 5 years.
The developments in the field of biotechnology are watched by the whole world with astonishment what this field does and can do. But there is an indisputable fact that these developments displace the meanings of some universal concepts that make up our imagination of human and society. Now, mother-father-child, birth-death, sexuality-reproduction, descendants-supergenus etc. The most ancient concepts we use when describing human beings are being redefined. This redefinition will undoubtedly have ontological, ethical, legal and political consequences. As a result, social life is shaped depending on how much we can agree on the meanings of the concepts. It is clear that humanity cannot agree on abstract concepts such as democracy, justice and freedom. However, biotechnological developments also open up the meanings of concrete and solid concepts to discussion. Today, it is getting harder and harder to show the equivalents of concepts such as woman-man, animate-inanimate, child-adult, human-machine. This situation opens the door to a more schizophrenic sociality. A life in which almost every meaning is defeated will become increasingly unbearable. One of the things humanity will need most in the coming years will be the constants it can hold on to. A life without constants means a life that no one can hold on to. It means a life in which everyone and everything will become doubtful.
Bio-technological developments are constantly creating "mistaken" situations. It is significant that the concept of mutashabih, which means similar, comes from the same root as the concept of "doubt". Bio-technological and robotic developments motherhood, fatherhood, childhood; makes vitality and inanimateness questionable. The concept of "muhkam", which is put against the concept of mutashabih in the Qur'an, is also meaningful in this respect. As the constants move, they lose their stability, it becomes difficult to judge, suspicion becomes widespread, paranoia becomes the norm. A world in which the muhkems are weakened and the allegorical ones are increased will put people in a state of "psychological and mental abandonment". Mutashabihs are inevitable, but if a person has lost his judgment, it will no longer be possible to understand and interpret mutashabih correctly.