In Defense of the Ick Factor

A Response to Cartoons Hate Her's "Everything is Eugenics"

One account I’ve enjoyed following on Substack since I joined about a year-and-a-half ago is

Cartoons Hate Her

. I follow her on Twitter, too.

I have no idea why her name is

Cartoons Hate Her

. Nevertheless, she seems to offer interesting cultural commentary and critiques, primarily on whatever Twitter dIsCOuRsE is happening on a given week. Sometimes I agree with her. Other times I don’t. Either way, I appreciate her candid (and hilarious!) writing and I think her perspective makes me a better thinker and writer.

But a recent CHH post caught my attention so strongly I had to buy a subscription to read the whole thing. She starts the post with an apology to her subscribers for the off-topic nature of the article. She says that while she usually writes about dating and sex, this post was about IVF. Deal with it, she essentially says, implying that an article on biotech/ethics is… less-than-interesting for many people.

As a bioethics fellow who has a master’s degree in Ethics from Yale, I took it personally (kidding. mostly.). I think biotech and the ethical considerations surrounding it are supremely interesting. I just forgot for a sec that I’m kinda nerdy and that normal people do not think such things are interesting. (I think they’re wrong. I’ll die on this hill.)

Are you a little icked-out by this image? I am. It’s a little bit icky.

ANYWAY, the hook of her post is about a tweet that made the rounds a few weeks ago about IVF “twins” (embryos created during the same round) born 13 years apart. CHH says,

“What struck me about the ‘twins 13 years apart’ thing was that a great deal of the opposition was vaguely right-wing, but not necessarily religious. None of these people like IVF, but the fact that the ‘twins’ (who were almost definitely fraternal) were born at very different times seemed to just distress them in a way that felt very visceral and illogical. It was creepy, it was new-age, it was Gattaca. As my four-year-old said about the animated film, Bad Guys, ‘It’s scary and I want it off.’ They react similarly to other forms of reproductive technology, where no harm can be proven, but it nebulously distresses them nonetheless.”

What stands out to me in this analysis (other than the fact that our four-year-olds are exactly the same) are the two forms of ethical paradigms at play. On the one hand, CHH is utilizing the harm principle, which evaluates situations by asking whether and how much harm would be caused by a thing. No harm? No problem. More on this in Part 2 of my response (forthcoming!).

The second ethical paradigm at play here is that of the so-called “right-wing” reactionaries, the Ickies-against-IVF, who are “nebulously distressed” about the IVF “twins” being born 13-years apart. We’ll call this paradigm “the ick factor.” It’s a gut sense of repugnance that something must be wrong because it gives you a bad feeling. “It’s scary and I want it off.”

(Believe it or not, the “yuck factor,” also known as the “repugnance factor,” is a real thing discussed specifically in bioethical circles. Leon Kass, renowned scientist, bioethicist and chairman of the Bush Council on Bioethics, wrote a chapter about it in The Ethics of Human Cloning called “The Wisdom of Repugnance.”)

As Charles Fethe says in a fantastic article on “The Yuck Factor,”

“To some people, primarily those with liberal utilitarian leanings, the biological possibilities offered by scientific advances are viewed as part of a brave new world in which human beings would be able to correct the defects of nature and mold their environment and their progeny according to their own standards. To people who follow a more conservative way of thinking, such a future would give us just more yuck.”

This is exactly the dynamic that CHH is highlighting in her post.

But while CHH is annoyed at the Ickies-against-IVF, the whole point of her article is, arguably, that people’s sense of ick doesn’t extend far enough! She gives various tangible examples of human trafficking which she says people should be outraged by if they’re worried that IVF or surrogacy are human trafficking. I agree! Something has desensitized our ick! In the cases she brings up, it’s most likely partisan politics that has caused the desensitization. To that I say: Make Ick Great Again!

Part of the problem with the IVF dIScOuRsE (and other moral or ethical issues) is that people just aren’t good at articulating why certain moral or ethical principles matter. Maybe it’s an issue of the ivory tower not coming down to earth enough to make sense to the rest of us normies. Maybe it’s a byproduct of our social media age in which Facebook commenting and Twitter “poasting” facilitates us talking past one another rather than actually engaging in logical argumentation. Maybe it’s because people don’t believe that there *are* right or wrong conclusions to arguments, meaning the way we *feel* about something becomes much more important than how we *think* about it. Maybe it’s a combo of all these plus more (probably).

But the CHH analysis that most people are vaguely icked-out by IVF and other repro-tech without much to ground that ick seems right to me. Because when academics and pastors have either lost influence or the ability to speak understandably to people, there isn’t much left to ground moral or ethical decision-making than intuition and feelings. AKA the “ick-factor.”

But all my twenty-plus years of schooling (plus my type-A personality) incline me to think it’s EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to think not only well, but correctly. There are right and wrong conclusions to arguments just like there are right and wrong answers to “What is 2+2?” Are most ethical questions more complicated and nuanced than “What is 2+2”? Of course! *Whispers: so are most math problems!* But there is still a right answer, even when it’s complicated and even if we can’t know for sure if our answer is correct.

The sense of ickiness is not the problem. In fact, I’d argue that a gut-sense that something is wrong is a moral intuition that should be paid very close attention. But as Leon Kass said, “Revulsion is not an argument.” The ick factor should be a starting point for moral/ethical deliberation, not a trump card. Both things can be true: People need more ick, and the people who have it should learn to articulate why.

More on the why in Part 2, “IVF & Moving Beyond the Ick Factor.” Idk when it’s coming because I’m a mostly stay-at-home-mom of four four-and-under and my life is insane. Subscribe for free and you’ll get an email when it comes out, if ever. How’s that for enticing?

I also have one additional one-month gift subscription to

Cartoons Hate Her

thanks to the subscription I bought just to read her one singular post on IVF. If you’ve read this far and want it, hit me up with your email address in the comments! First come, first served!