In my infancy, I learned to speak Cantonese at home with my family; I spoke it before any other language. As I grew up in Puerto Rico, I next learned Spanish. While I officially learned it in the Catholic school, a block from my home, I also learned it from talking to the locals and watching television. My parents ran a restaurant, and we spoke to the patrons in Spanish.
As I turned ten, we moved to Florida. While I studied English in school in Puerto Rico, I failed that class. I learned English out of necessity when I arrived in Florida and dove into the public school system. Similarly, I learned through speaking with neighbors and watching television. Learning a language through a classroom environment lacks the real feel of the language.
Navigating the idioms became part of the adventure of learning a new language; sometimes it felt like navigating a minefield. One such idiom, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”, perplexed me.
Nothing to do with chickens
Of course, the expression has little to do with literal chickens; I know that now. It’s about anticipating, perhaps even relying on a favorable outcome. As I make a living as a software tester, conducting myself as a perpetual pessimist is second nature. This naturally leads to the next perpetual question, “Which came first? the chicken or the egg?” Can we even rely on an egg eventually hatching?
If there is, indeed, minimal wisdom in the origin of the phrase. If we can’t expect an egg to hatch into a chicken, what about humans? The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos used in IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) counted as children. Couples who lost frozen embryos in a storage facility due to an accident may sue for wrongful death. While we all mourn this tragic accident, does it really rise to the level of death?
Allow me to frame it this way. While expecting parents may announce the news of the pregnancy immediately after they find out, why do some of them wait until week thirteen? What did they list as the first reason for delaying? Risk of miscarriage. Age affects the risk of miscarriage; what is the most favorable age range? It’s ’35 and under’ and that rate is still 15%.
Wrap your head around that. Even if successfully becoming pregnant, there is at least a 15% chance of miscarriage. Also remember that only a fraction of implanted frozen embryos results in pregnancy. How low do the odds need to be before we no longer implicitly legally consider a zygote a person?
What to do about frozen embryos?
The Alabama Supreme Court ruling ruled that accidental destruction of frozen embryos may be ruled as wrongful death. As a simple extension of that ruling, can they rule that intentional destruction of frozen embryos is murder? This is not that farfetched; Texas forced a woman to carry twins to birth only to survive for literally minutes. Imagine that potential parents perform DNA tests on frozen embryos and find that one has zero chance of viability, are they allowed to destroy that frozen embryo? Or will a state like Alabama force a woman to implant and carry a non-viable frozen embryo to term only to have it die within minutes?
Strangely, I almost anticipated this absurd notion of frozen embryos as children. Logistically, there are some very legitimate reasons why frozen embryos may be destroyed. If you still subscribe to the notion that frozen embryos are indeed life; I made a suggestion. The idea is simple. Put the names of all women of child-bearing years in the state onto a list and then draw a lottery.
Any woman selected must subject herself to IVF. It doesn’t matter if she’s your wife or daughter; after all, all life is sacred.
Freedom of religion
If our first amendment grants us, along with freedom of expression, freedom of religion. The text reads, “no law respecting an establishment of religion”. What if my religion does not believe the notion that life begins at conception? The very idea that we establish the definition of life based on a particular religion naturally impinges upon the rights of people practicing other religions. While we agree that a baby is alive, none of us definitively knows when life begins; we certainly don’t collectively agree.
For many years we defined the end of life by our medical technology. Decades ago, doctors declared death once the heart stopped; today, high school gyms have defibrillators. Similarly, it only makes sense to define the start of life strictly by our medical technology. If an expectant mother dies in an accident, how far along does the pregnancy need to be before it can survive without the mother? When can we deliver a premature baby feasibly?
As it happens, this is precisely how we defined this threshold. The term that we used is ‘fetal viability’, and we settled it decades ago. We settled it in a little case called Roe v Wade.
If frozen embryos count as children, how many?
Let’s suppose you subscribe to the notion that a frozen embryo is indeed life. The nature of the procedure freezes the zygote as late as 6-7 days post fertilization during the blastocyst stage. I’m not trying to pull a fast one; look it up. Furthermore, identical twins are also known as monozygotic twins, because they originate from one zygote. This is the reason why they are identical; they have the same DNA.
I assume that we won’t debate that each identical twin is a whole independent person, right? They’re not a fraction of a person. Here’s the complication; identical twins may split from one embryo as late as nine days after fertilization. Or in other words, they may split after they were frozen and subsequently thawed. Remember, they were frozen as late as 7 days after fertilization; in identical twins, the embryo splits up to 9 days after fertilization. I’m not using funny math; use your fingers if you need to.
Therefore, if we have a frozen embryo, none of us know beyond the shadow of a doubt that single embryo won’t develop into multiple identical siblings. It has happened; it will happen. Why should we count it as one when it may be two (or more)?
Perhaps this is the most interesting question. If we concede that one frozen embryo may develop into two or more identical babies, due to circumstances beyond our control. Why is it that difficult to accept that one frozen embryo does not develop into a baby at all (results in a miscarriage), due to circumstances beyond our control?
Or in other words, why are we counting the children before they’re born?