Ethical Concerns About In-Vitro Fertilization

I ended yesterday's discussion of bio-ethics with this paragraph:

A complication in all of this is in-vitro fertilization, the development of embryos outside the uterus, in petri dishes. Are these developing embryos also human and worthy of protection even before they are inserted into the woman's uterus? And what about the storing of these embryos for later use? Many ethical and legal questions cluster about this issue.

Over 4 million babies have been born through in-vitro fertilization (IVF). An estimated 8.5% of the 40 million couples of childbearing age in the United States are involuntarily infertile. Many more around the world could be added to this more than 3 million.

The IVF procedure is described in an article by Dr. Amnon Goldworth in Pediatrics in Review: "The Ethics of In Vitro Fertilization." He states his position about ethics in this way:

My conception of ethically permissible behavior is based on the view that any decision is ethically permitted if it is voluntary and does not cause gratuitous harm to others. This is congruent with the early ethical stricture in medicine, Primum non nocere, “First, do no harm.” However, our perception of harm must be qualified. A living being can be harmed without being harmed in a moral sense. I harm a mosquito when I swat it, but I do not harm it in a moral sense unless I assign a moral absolute value to the mosquito’s well-being. To be harmed in a moral sense is to be wronged. Thus, my concern is with behavior that does or does not wrong another.

Several ethical concerns arise.

1. Embryos can be tested for defects and diseases. Defective and diseased embryos may be rejected and destroyed. Is this murder? That leads to the next question. Do parents using IVF with the potential of transmitting a disease (e.g. Huntington chorea) wrong their child?
2. Is the embryo a person with rights? Many insist that the developing "human organism" (sic!) is not a person until born. We who are pro-life advocates generally insist that personhood begins at the moment of conception. How can that be so? 
3. Who are the parents? We now have the ability to combine sperm from one man, egg from one woman and the resulting embryo can  be implanted into a third woman. The child born from that pregnancy can be raised by a separate couple. Potentially five people are involved.
4. IVF embryos not implanted are frozen. What do we do with the estimated 5 million frozen embryos in the U.S. alone? How do we treat them if they are indeed persons with rights? 
5. We have the technology to facilitate high multiple birth pregnancies for a woman who may be unable to support sextuplets or octuplets? Who decides, the woman (and her husband) or the doctors? What about the liberty to have as many children as we want?
6. Further, with multiple pregnancies a woman faces a threat to her physical and mental health. Should access to this technology be limited only to women of a certain age and health? Who should make that decision? 
7. Multiple pregnancies also present a threat to the well-being of the offspring. Consider low birthweight and preterm birth. Children born of IVF have a greater risk of Spina bifida and other serious birth defects. 
8. Fertility treatments and IVF: who pays? Insurance plans, both public and private, or the couple? 

I leave you to ponder these questions. Consider what I have written in earlier postings. Ponder what God's Word says about our responsibilities before Him. Devote yourself to prayer. No simple answer to any of these questions will satisfy. I welcome your input.