Various medical establishments including the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Duke University USA conducted a study between June 2006 and July 2007 on 1020 fertility patients to ascertain their views and wishes on the cryopreservation (freezing) and disposal of any unused embryos.
In vitro fertilization currently only has about a 23% success rate. Many embryos do not implant into the uterus requiring a couple to undergo multiple cycles before they finally achieve a pregnancy. Due to the use of ovarian stimulating drugs in the procedure a lot of eggs are cultivated and this also leads to the creation of more embryos.
It is standard practice to freeze any which are not implanted so the couple can have future IVF attempts should the first one fail and for those who are successful to give them the chance of having a sibling for their child. This leads to a large surplus of unused embryos and the ethical dilemma of what to do with them.
Options Available To The IVF Patient
There are few choices available to those who have their embryos frozen. Currently these are:
- Donating the embryos to another infertile couple or couples.
- Donating them to medical research so that doctors can develop stem cell technology and research things like what causes miscarriage.
- Thaw out the embryos and allow them to perish.
- Keep them frozen 'forever'. In the UK you don't have this option as there is a maximum 10 year time limit on the amount of time an embryo can be frozen. In other countries this time limit may vary.
40,000 Frozen Embryos Are On Ice In The USA
There are a staggering 40,000 embryos being cryopreserved in America. Yet most of the people enrolled in the study objected to thawing out any unwanted embryo and allowing it to perish raising questions about how the public views the status of the embryo.
Some people view an embryo as a human being and say life begins at conception and others think that human life is only possible when the baby has conscious thought patterns.
More than half of those surveyed would only use their embryos for reproductive purposes with only 21% willing to donate them for medical research. Only 7% were happy with any or all of the options offered to them. Those who were happy to discard frozen embryos were often concerned about the health of the embryo and wanted to avoid any potiential disabilities in their future child.
Dr. Anne Drapkin Lyerly lead author of the study said, "People should know they'll have a difficult decision awaiting them. They're facing a choice that is morally difficult."
The study was published in Fertility and Sterility Journal (The American Society of Reproductive Medicine) on 5th December 2008.
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