400K and counting
Christians recoil at explosive growth of frozen human embryos.
By Bob Smietana | posted 06/24/2003
After three years of trying to conceive a child, Michele and Jeff Turner learned they were
infertile. "Our doctor told us, 'You have a better chance of winning the Powerball
lottery than of conceiving a child naturally,'" said Michele, now 33.
In vitro fertilization (IVF), or seeking to produce an embryo outside the womb, was also
a long shot. After two failed IVF attempts, the Turners looked into adopting a child and
raising a family in their Royer's Ford, Pennsylvania home. The cost (more than $20,000 in
their area) was prohibitive.
Then, during a meeting of a national infertility support group, they heard about frozen
embryos left from infertility treatments.
After contacting about 40 fertility clinics, the Turners joined an embryo donation program
at the Cooper Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Mont Clare, New Jersey. Later, they
received embryos from a donor family. In December 1999, Michele gave birth to twin daughters,
Morgan and Macy.
Then, when their daughters were nine months old, Jeff and Michele discovered she was pregnant
with a son, Myles, who was conceived naturally. They had to relinquish their rights to some
remaining donated embryos, which were considered property of the clinic.
"It was an excruciating thing to do," Michele said.
A new study, by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology and the RAND Corporation,
found that fertility clinics in the United State have nearly 400,000 frozen human embryos
in storage-twice the highest previous estimate.
The survey of 430 clinics showed that 88.2 percent of the embryos are being stored for
possible future use. About 11,000 are set aside for scientific research. About 9,000 are
designated for infertile couples. Another 9,000 will be thawed and destroyed.
The findings have prompted a variety of responses from Christian activists and ethicists,
from questioning IVF to pushing harder for embryo adoption. But most would agree with Pia
de Solenni, a fellow at the Center for Human Life and Bioethics at Family Research Council:
"Human beings are never disposable, whether [in the form of] an embryo, a baby, or
a 90-year-old woman."
Clinics first began freezing embryos after 1983, when IVF was introduced in the United
States. In the freezing process, technicians place embryos in plastic straws or glass vials,
along with a cryo-preservative or "antifreeze" solution.
Then workers store them in a cylinder of liquid nitrogen at about minus 319 degrees Fahrenheit.
The report notes that some of the 400,000 embryos have been frozen for 20 years.
No one knows how long the embryos can be stored, said Jeff Keenan, a reproductive endocrinologist
and director of the Southeastern Fertility Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.
"You could expect good thaw on embryos at five years," he said. "Ten years
is something most of us would prefer to avoid."
Keenan said "many couples refuse to make a decision about the ultimate fate of their
embryos," and just keep paying the storage fees. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
in Boston freezes about eight embryos a day and says it has 3,000 embryos "under lock
and key."
Keenan is trying to keep the numbers down at his clinic. Keenan's practice keeps about
300 embryos in storage. Patients agree in writing to donate any leftover embryos to infertile
couples. But getting couples to follow through is difficult, he said. Parents don't see
that they are "basically allowing them to die slowly in cryopreservation."
David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical Association, said the report
indicates there are too few controls on IVF.
"This report reveals the tragedy that clinics are freezing many more human embryos
than they ever intend to implant in mothers," Stevens said in a prepared statement.
"This practice is unethical and diminishes the inestimable value of these precious,
young human lives."
Gilbert Meilaender, professor of Christian ethics at Valparaiso University, said the fate
of frozen embryos is just one moral problem with IVF. Another is how it encourages people
to see an embryo "as a product that we can do whatever we like with."
"We haven't been careful enough," said Meilaender, who is a member of the President's
Council on Bioethics. "It isn't sufficient to say that getting a baby is a good thing."
Other Christians are encouraging adoption as a way out of the dilemma. They point to the
large numbers of infertile couples who could be helped-by some estimates, as many as 6 million
people. So far, the response has been small.
The Snowflakes embryo adoption program, run by Nightlight Christian Adoptions in Fullerton,
California, has 121 genetic, or donor, families matched with 82 adoptive parents. To date,
18 families have given birth in the program, which began five years ago. Another 16 babies
are due this year.
Few states regulate the practice. In 2001, President Bush signed a bill providing $900,000
to promote embryo adoptions. The Christian Medical Association (CMA) is working with Keenan
and the Baptist Women's Hospital of Knoxville to create a National Embryo Adoption Center.
Couples and fertility clinics will be able to send embryos earmarked for donation to the
center.
The CMA's Stevens said he fears proponents of embryonic stem-cell research will spin the
new study to push for making more embryos available for research. In 2001, President Bush
signed an executive order barring the creation of any more stem-cell lines from discarded
frozen human embryos.
De Solenni of Family Research Council said, "Those who put all of their eggs in the
embryonic stem-cell basket are desperate for more funding and for breakthroughs."
Stevens and de Solenni call for more regulation on IVF clinics. "There are regulations
about what size a hospital room has to be, but you can make as many embryos as you want
and destroy as many embryos as you want," Stevens said. "I think that is just
unconscionable."
Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click
for reprint information.
June 2003, Vol. 47, No. 7, Page 17
|
