Michael Kinsley’s patience with pro-lifers is exhausted. He had been willing to give us the benefit of the doubt, he acknowledges, because we were “that rarity in modern American politics: a strong interest group defending the interest of someone other than themselves.”

    But it seems we lost his respect because we do not see the stem cell debate in the same way that he does. Pointing to fertility clinics, Kinsley demands to know why there is no outcry at what they do.

    In any particular case, fertility clinics try to produce more embryos than they intend to implant. Then — like the Yale admissions office (only more accurately) — they pick and choose among the candidates, looking for qualities that make for a better human being. If you don't get into Yale, you have the choice of attending a different college. If the fertility clinic rejects you, you get flushed away — or maybe frozen until the day you can be discarded without controversy.

And fate isn't much kinder to the embryos that make this first cut. Usually several of them are implanted in the hope that one will survive. Or, to put it another way, in the hope that all but one will not survive. And fertility doctors do their ruthless best to make these hopes come true.

    In short, if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility clinics are death camps — with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics. No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly think otherwise.

    But prolifers have expressed dismay at what fertility clinics do and many oppose in vitro fertilization for some of the reasons Kinsley notes. By the same logic, they also oppose the “morning after” pill because it prevents an already fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus. If Kinsley hasn’t heard an outcry, perhaps it’s because he isn’t listening to the right people.

    Besides, even if one does not believe that embryos enjoy “full human rights,” it’s a long way from that to extracting their DNA and flushing them down the drain like so much spare saline solution. Surely the more humane and morally sensitive approach is to err on the side of respecting life, or certainly to pause before wantonly destroying life.

    Kinsley is also out of date. There was a time, 15 or so years ago, when fertility clinics did try to maximize the number of embryos created by and for each couple in order to increase the chances of having at least one “take home baby.” But techniques have improved and this is no longer considered desirable or necessary.

    Nor is it the case that clinics casually discard embryos. Most make elaborate and meticulous prearrangements (looking over their shoulders at the lawyers to be sure) for “leftover” embryos and it is now a common practice for clinics to offer up embryos to unsuccessful couples for embryo adoption.

    Even a strictly pro-life couple can undertake assisted reproduction with a clear conscience provided they decide in advance to treat each embryo as a potential child and to give each a chance at life. This may result in larger families than some would have considered ideal, but it solves the problem of embryos stored in freezers for years and decades.

    Many pro-lifers have thought deeply in this arena – unlike Kinsley who tosses out accusations of “willful ignorance and indifference to logic” when he has clearly not studied the matter carefully himself.