Embryos do not have the capacity for awareness or sensation, and are thus very different from late-stage fetuses or already born children. The difference may not matter to you, but it matters to a lot of us. It also matters to a creature which is experiencing pain. I certainly think parents are much better suited than the government to decide what to do with their excess embryos.
I would also be happy to let parents decide what to do with full-term anencephalic babies, some of whom have a partial brainstem and thus don't immediately qualify as clinically brain-dead, but who have no possibility of ever developing awareness or sensation, and will inevitably die shortly. If parents want to hasten the death of these unfortunate creatures, in order to maximize the number of lives that may saved with their organs, that should be their prerogative, as the infant in question will never be in a position to consent or not consent.
We have to be willing to make some value judgements. It's just a cop-out to insist on reducing all the tremendous complexities of life to black-and-white. The animal rights extremists do this cop-out. According to them, since animals cannot comprehend medical research and thus cannot consent to be used in it, we may never use an animal in research (much less for food), no matter how great the good that might come of it, nor how minimal the suffering might be for any particular research project. In my book, the embryo rights extremists are just as irrational and impractical as the animal rights extremists.
In other words, "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."
SD
I'm a bit confused by it, however.
For instance, I'm not exactly sure why it is that you felt it necessary to bring up the issue of "animal rights". I have never mentioned anything about animals here.
I would point out to you that animals are very different from human embryos, late-stage fetuses or already born children. The difference may not matter to you, but it matters to a lot of us.
I'll try to remain discussing the sacrifice of humans, if that's OK with you.
And what I hear you saying is that it is OK with you to sacrifice some humans -- specifically, the weak, the defenseless, and those unable to give consent -- in order to allow research into possible cures for diseases.
And I think I hear you also saying that it is OK with you to sacrifice any human unable to give his or her consent to being sacrificed so long as such "unfortunate creatures" will inevitably die shortly.
Have I correctly stated your position?