MISPLACED EMBRYOS, AND OTHER SHOCKS

Reports Point Up the Practical and Medical Problems With In Vitro Fertilization

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MELBOURNE, Australia, NOV. 4, 2000 (ZENIT.org).- In vitro fertilization,

long condemned by the Catholic Church, is raising new legal and medical

fears in the secular world.

Recent news reports, for instance, have highlighted the medical dangers

involved for the children born as a result.

On Oct. 14 The Age newspaper of Australia reported that in vitro

fertilization could pass the problem of infertility from fathers to sons

and bypass an important natural screening process. According to Roger

Short, a reproductive biologist at the Royal Women's Hospital, male

infertility often occurred because men had mutations or deletions in the

genes that controlled sperm production.

Addressing the third Menzies Scholar Symposium at the Murdoch Children's

Research Institute, Short explained that in some techniques, a single

abnormal sperm is injected into a single egg.

"In allowing defective sperm to fertilize an egg in this way, we know that

we are propagating the defect in any male offspring that are produced," the

biologist said.

Although the offspring's infertility could be treated, Short questioned

whether doing so outweighed the adverse effects in the population at large.

"We can take one sperm and micro-inject it into a human egg and create a

pregnancy, but how do we know we're doing the right thing?" he asked

delegates to the symposium. "We are bypassing an important safety check of

nature's designing. Evolutionary biologists would have to say that the

evidence suggests infertility is not an accident; it's a protective

mechanism and we're bypassing it at our peril."

Danger for embryos

BBC on Sept. 12 reported another issue concerning the safety of IVF

treatments. It turns out that a commonly used technique to help women

conceive may increase the risks of babies being born with defects, BBC said.

The procedure involved is that of assisted "hatching" in which a laser or

microscopic needle is used to make a hole or thin the membrane around

embryos produced in the test tube. This can help the developing embryo

successfully implant into the lining of the womb, and produce a pregnancy.

BBC noted, however, that a scientific study carried out by the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, found that assisted

hatching was associated with higher rates of "monozygotic twinning."

This is where a single, fertilized embryo splits in two at an early stage,

producing a twin pregnancy. Monozygotic twinning is more likely to produce

babies with defects than the more usual form of twinning, in which two

fertilized embryos implant themselves into the womb.

Dr. Laura Schieve from the disease-control center warned that her study,

while not definitive, should prompt further research into the issue. She

said that in her study, women who had monozygotic twinning were far more

likely to have had assisted hatching.

The risk was 1.7 times greater in cases where some of the embryos

transferred had been hatched, and nearly four times higher in cases where

all of the embryos had undergone the procedure. Other factors such as the

age of the woman, the number of embryos transferred and previous attempts

could not explain such a difference.

Another source of concern over IVF techniques is the danger of human error.

Two infertility clinics in the United Kingdom recently had to offer DNA

tests to dozens of mothers, to prove that the babies they gave birth to are

really their own. The problem was discovered by chance, according to a

Sept. 23 report in The Telegraph, when a woman about to have her own

fertilized eggs implanted in her womb at a Hampshire hospital overheard a

surgical assistant say they had been lost. Despite an extensive search, the

fertilized eggs were not found.

The patient was sent home and, reportedly, has since been told that her IVF

treatment, which can be a protracted and stressful experience, will have to

be restarted. Afterward, an investigation by the Human Fertilization and

Embryology Authority, the industry watchdog, found discrepancies in the way

patients' eggs were labeled and stored. At least 20 couples were affected.

The Guardian newspaper reported Sept. 25 that hundreds of women have

contacted an emergency hot line fearing that their children are not theirs

or that their stored embryos have been given to other women.

Tim Hedgley of Issue, the national fertility association brought in to

counsel patients, said the women were probably implanted with the wrong

embryos. He said the legal ramifications of the mix-up were "extremely

serious."

Excessive numbers of embryos

A long-standing deficiency in IVF clinics has been the large numbers of

"excess" embryos produced. An ethical dilemma has arisen about the fate of

these incipient human lives. Some favor their destruction, while others

plead for them to be implanted in mothers for adoption.

More than 100,000 such human embryos have accumulated at U.S. fertility

clinics, according to estimates reported in the Oct. 16 Los Angeles Times,

though no one knows the numbers for sure.

One of those involved in promoting the adoption of these frozen embryos is

JoAnn Davidson. "We see these embryos as children locked in frozen

orphanages," she said. "Those embryos are human life."

Davidson runs a placement service for embryos. In the last two and a half

years, Nightlight Christian Adoptions of Fullerton, California, has placed

202 embryos from 20 donor families, producing five children. Four others

are yet to be delivered.

But there are far more people seeking embryos than there are donors. Many

specialists say that fertility clinics would do more to foster donations if

they were not constrained by legal uncertainties.

In most IVF procedures, a woman takes hormone injections so that her body

ripens 15 or 20 egg cells during her monthly reproductive cycle rather than

the usual single egg. Doctors remove the eggs in a surgical procedure and

mix them with sperm. The resulting embryos grow for several days in a

laboratory dish, then are transferred to the woman's uterus.

Not every embryo grows successfully in the womb. In fact, most fail. Still,

couples usually transfer no more than four at once, to cut the odds of

having twins and triplets. This leaves many patients with unused embryos,

which they most often choose to freeze for possible use later.

Thousands are discarded once their owners decide that they are no longer

needed. But embryos have been thawed and used in successful pregnancies as

long as nine years after they were frozen.

While some adoption agencies are transferring embryos to hopeful patients

who cannot create their own, the work is hampered by a lack of clear laws

about who the legal parents of the resulting children will be. Another

complication arises when the couple responsible for the creation of the

embryos divorces.

Already embryos are turning up in divorce and custody disputes, forcing

judges to decide whether laws written for property and contracts should

apply to this early form of human life. The Los Angeles Times explained

that in two states, New York and California, courts ruling in high-tech

reproduction cases have appealed to lawmakers to clarify parenthood and

custody laws.

The newspaper went on to quote Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at the

University of Pennsylvania. "We've just hung these embryos out there in

limbo, which makes no sense," said Caplan. "The solution we've settled on

is, 'Let's just make as many as we want now and worry about their moral

status later.' That is just not morally responsible."

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