FILM: The Ethics of IVF Embryos – Science, Choice, and Family

This film explores issues raised by a series of articles entitled 'The Embryo Question', written by Anna Louie Sussman and published in the New York Times.

(If you can't see the film embedded above, you can watch it on YouTube.)

The film was produced by the Museum of Science in Boston, and features Sussman in discussion with bioethicists Professor Insoo Hyun (director of the Centre for Life Sciences at the Museum of Science) and Professor Vardit Ravitsky (president and CEO of the Hastings Centre).

The three articles by Sussman that make up the 'Embryo Question' series can be read online here.

1. Should we limit embryo research?
2. Should human life be optimised?
3. Are embryos property? Human life? Neither?

A number of the experts referred to and interviewed in the series – including Peter Thompson and Professors Emily Jackson, Anneke Lucassen and Sarah Franklin – spoke at last year's PET Annual Conference.

The conference itself is discussed in the concluding article, where it is described as a meeting of 'philosophers, undergraduates, politicians, lawyers, device manufacturers, OB-GYNs, investors, embryologists, developmental biologists, geneticists, fertility doctors, medical students, ethicists, research funders, regulators and scholars from a variety of fields'.

Several of the issues discussed in the 'Embryo Question' series will be further explored at the next PET Annual Conference, which is entitled 'What Does Genomics Mean for Fertility Treatment?' and will take place in central London on Wednesday 10 December 2025.

Registration will open shortly – please save the date, and email events@progress.org.uk to register your interest in attending.