Note: The ethical judgments on this page refer exclusively to the action — never to the person who performs it. Every person possesses inalienable dignity, regardless of what they do or have done. Cf. Note on ethical judgments (German).
A savior sibling is a child that is produced by means of in vitro fertilization and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGT) and selected according to its HLA tissue profile, so that it can serve as a donor of umbilical-cord blood, stem cells, or bone marrow for a gravely ill sibling.
The procedure
Several embryos are produced by IVF and tested by PGT against two criteria: (1) absence of the familial hereditary disease and (2) HLA compatibility with the ill sibling. Only the embryo that fulfills both criteria is transferred. The remaining embryos are discarded or cryopreserved.
Personal-ontological classification
Savior-sibling selection is a particularly clear violation of the Personalist Norm: the new human being is not called into existence for their own sake but as a means to another’s end. Wojtyła formulates it thus: the person may never be a mere means but is always to be affirmed as an end in themselves.
The plight of the parents — a gravely ill child — is understandable and deserves compassion. The good intention, however, does not change the object of the action: a human being is produced in order to be of use to another. Several embryos — each of them a human person with full ontological dignity — are discarded in the selection process because their tissue profile does not match.
Savior-sibling selection is thus a form of eugenic selection and at the same time an intrinsically evil act: the instrumentalization of the person cannot be justified by any end, however good.
Legal situation
In the United Kingdom, the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) first authorized a savior-sibling selection in the Hashmi case (2001). In Germany, the procedure is not explicitly regulated under the Embryo Protection Act but is effectively excluded by the restrictive licensing of PGD. In the USA there is no federal regulation.
Ontological classification
Superordinate concepts: Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
Ontological relations:
- is subclass of: Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
- is subclass of: Eugenic Selection
- contradicts: Personalist Norm
- presupposes: In Vitro Fertilization
Chapter assignment: Chapter 5: Oblivion of the Person (German)
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology. Bexten 2017, pp. 195 ff. (oblivion of the person and instrumentalization).
Further sources:
- HFEA (2001): Hashmi case — the first authorization of a savior-sibling selection in the United Kingdom.
- German Ethics Council (Deutscher Ethikrat) (2011): Präimplantationsdiagnostik — Stellungnahme (opinion).