The New York Times looks (briefly) at conversations parents are now having with children born to surrogates with donor eggs and sperm: “No Stork Involved, but Mom and Dad Had Help.”

Every child has a birth story. The story of Simmie, who was born to a surrogate, is different from the stories of the three children in the movie. But her story, which is also the story of her 11-year-old twin brothers, Andrew and Benjamin, is less unusual than it used to be.

I’ve often recommended the novel My Sister’s Keeper as an interesting exploration of what the British call savior siblings — using reproductive technologies and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in order to have a child that can be an organ or bone marrow donor for an ailing sibling.

On June 26, the movie version opens, starring Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin, and Sofia Vassilieva.  I wonder if they’ve changed the ending?

William Saletan writes at Slate.com about the responsibility that goes along with the use of reproductive technologies that create embryos.  From the conclusion:

I’m a pro-choice moralist. I don’t want the government telling people what to do with their pregnancies or their spare embryos. But that freedom doesn’t eliminate moral obligation; it intensifies it. Each of us has to decide how to respect life in all its complexity. To me, embryos aren’t people, but they’re the beginnings of people. They aren’t to be created, killed, or frozen lightly.

That means, among other things, that they should never be an afterthought. Don’t have sex, at least not the procreative kind, without discussing what you’ll do in the event of pregnancy. Don’t make or freeze embryos without thinking through what you’ll do with them. And if, after talking it over, you can’t stomach the options ahead, maybe you should reconsider whether you’re ready for this. That’s a lot to ask, I know. But nobody said choosing would be easy.

While there are several things here I disagree with, Saletan makes two important and related points.  Reproductive technologies (and, indeed the full spectrum of biotechnologies) carry an intense obligation that we ensure we act in ways that nurture and support human life, and avoid uses that destroy or even imperil life.  This requires of us the hard work of determining what should and should not be pursued and by what means.