As Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill makes clear, the structure of the IVF process allows for hundreds of thousands of frozen human embryos to be created in laboratories without any clear plan for their future. She is undoubtedly correct in suggesting that most patients see these embryos as the promise of fertility at the time of their treatment. But what about these embryos and their future once the childbearing years are over? Some patients indicated a willingness to allow other infertile couples to “adopt” their embryos. Nevertheless, these represent only a fraction of the patients involved in the study. Furthermore, many of these individuals and couples are apparently more theoretically committed to this option then in fact. In the end, very few patients choose to allow the adoption of their embryos — often seen as akin to “virtual children.”
Another small percentage indicated a willingness to allow the embryos to be used in medical research. As Merrill explains, this is often a hypothetical possibility anyway, since most of these embryos are unsuitable for medical research. Of course the greater problem with this option is that it views human embryos as mere material for medical research. The embryos are destroyed in the name of medical science.
A significant number of patients are deciding to “thaw” their embryos and allow their demise. Hauntingly, Merrill writes of some patients and couples who understand clearly enough that these embryos are of some moral significance, and some patients express a desire for some ceremony to accompany the demise of their embryonic progeny.
For the vast majority of patients, the current decision is to make no decision at all. This condition will not last, for the reproductive technology industry faces logistical, moral, financial, and technological limitations to the indefinite storage of what may even now be more than a million human embryos that are never to be transferred into wombs.
Monday 31 August 2009
What to Do With the Embryos? ☀
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