Two loving parents have a female child, age 9. The child has developed a pernicious case of leukemia that requires her to have a marrow transplant within about 18 months in order to survive. Despite intensive search, no blood or marrow matches have been discovered within the known donor pool. Prospects appear dim.

Because of the child's immunological characteristics, the parents believe that the best prospect is to conceive another child of their own with the probability that the sibling so produced would be an immunological match and, therefore, a suitable donor. The parents embark on this course, whereupon hemotological testing reveals that the fetus has the desired immunological characteristics.

For each condition below, did the parents act ethically or unethically? On what philosophical basis have you made your judgment? Explain.

1. The fetus is aborted at 5 months in order to provide marrow cells for the transplant. The fetus dies.
2. The child is delivered at term and umbilical cord blood, which contains immature stem cells, is used to provide for the transplant. The newborn survives as a new family member.
3. The child is delivered at term and at the age of 8 months is used as a donor of marrow cells. The 8-month-old child continues to survive as a member of the family.
4. Through the use of embryo manipulation, clones of the fetus are made at an early stage and held in frozen storage in order to provide stem cells in the event of future need. The original embryo/fetus/child develops to participate in one of the procedures (#1-3) listed above.
5. Frozen sperm collected from the husband before his untimely death is used to produce a fetus to serve as a donor in #3 above.
6. The biological mother of the leukemia patient can no longer bear a child herself but, through in vitro manipulaltion, one of her eggs is fertilized by her dead husband's sperm and implanted into a surrogate. A fetus is produced as in #3 above to serve as a donor.