6 Ethics for Embryologists 157frequently betrayed their own ethical preferences, i.e. ‘...I mean, ide-
ally, I’d prefer everyone put them [good embryos] back inside themselves
and gave them a chance I mean it is a bit ....I find it weird when people
ring up and say: ‘Hey, I’ve got two children and I’ve still got two in
the freezer but we don’t want them’. Disposition of frozen good looking
embryos was the one aspect of the mutually interwoven laboratory prac-
tices that scientists were not happy to perform for each other.
Most scientists spoke of being involved in the process of IVF as
‘humbling’, and while none of them considered that they ever ‘played
God’, they did enjoy the closeness of experience to whatever it was that
caused fertilisation to occur and embryos to be implanted and success-
fully attach. One spoke of the IVF experience as being predetermined
by fate, and if spirits were meant to come down and live with a par-
ticular family, then IVF was simply the mechanism through which
they would arrive. Thus, while external debates about the field of IVF
and, most recently, those surrounding the mandatory time require-
ments for embryo storage in New Zealand focus on a sense of whether
the embryos are human or not, the practice of the scientists was with
a more complex and process-based definition of humanity. All of the
material was considered very precious for its potential to be a human
being. Some scientists argued that it would be impossible to keep on
with the job if they were to regard all embryos as human, because ‘most
of these embryos are not going to develop normally and you can’t tell
which ones really from the outside are going to turn into what’. Others
argued that if you didn’t understand the potential for fertilised eggs to
become human you shouldn’t do the job, as you would not be careful
enough with them. The point that everyone was agreed upon was the
importance of the ‘potential’ for personhood, rather than the person-
hood of embryos per se.
Staff tended to personify the embryonic material that they were
working with, speaking of embryos as ‘little fellows’, reflecting a senti-
ment of guardianship or custodial care that a previous interviewee also
articulated. In this sense they were forthright in protecting exposure
of the fertilised eggs to potential hazards such as overly inquisitive cli-
ents who begged staff to frequently check on the development of the
embryos. One scientist mused that all the other members of the clinic