I don’t really know what to say about this article. It had to have taken a lot of bad decisions for doctors and scientists to have painted themselves into this corner, all starting with treating human beings as objects.
Tens of thousands of human embryos hang in cold storage in Canada’s fertility clinics, an unknown number of which are “orphans.”
Increasingly, however, clinics are preparing to match these embryos — which could survive for decades in suspended animation — with infertile couples who long for a child of their own. It’s a form of third-party procreation that experts predict will only become more common as the number of surplus embryos grows.
Embryo donation has been called the most humane answer to an sticky ethical situation: How to dispose of leftover embryos that are created by infertility treatments and then literally frozen in time?
Personally, I don’t have a problem with people adopting embryos. It’s better than them living in frozen stasis for 15 years until they can no longer survive, and I don’t see it as very much different from anonymous adoption of children who have already been born. If nothing else, it’s certainly better than the other two options: destruction or using them for science experiments. However, I think it’s incredibly sad that we’ve gotten ourselves into this position in the first place.
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I just wrote a long comment but I think that my computer lost it before it could post it. My apologies if it makes it through somehow and now I’m repeating myself.
Embryo adoption seems like the kind of thing that could really mess a child up. Yes, it allows the child to live, but the basic message to the child is that they were deliberately created because the parents thought they might need/want them, and then given away because “sorry, there isn’t enough room in the family for you.”
Embryo adoption makes giving your genetic child away socially acceptable. Hey, it makes it sound merciful! At least in the public discussion of embryo adoption there is no issue of the parents having to justify why they can’t raise the extra child.
Embryo adoption is made to be merciful because we accept two premises: that the parents have no responsibility to the embryos, and that the pain of infertility justifies doing anything possible to alleviate it.
Embryo adoption denies the child the connection with their biological family, while suggesting that the important connection is the one with the person who gestates and then cares for them. This concerns me as the idea that the biological connection doesn’t matter is being used to deprive father’s of the right to have a connection with their child. Women are dismissing their ex-boyfriend’s as “just the sperm donors” and attempting to prevent the father from having contact with the child. In the USA they can do this by giving the child up for adoption in Utah, where the laws make it almost impossible for the father to claim and raise his own child.
Even the adoption of infants is not without its problems. It is “a permanent solution to temporary problems.” Many women grieve tremendously at having given away a child. The grown children of anonymous adoption are fighting to try to get access to their original birth certificates. And there is way too much corruption in the adoption industry.
Christy,
You make some very good points, and I would argue that these are good enough reasons to do away with IVF, or at the very least to forbid the creation of so-called spare embryos. Some countries have done the latter (eg. Italy, I believe).
While I agree with all of your points, we still have to deal with the embryos that already exist. And while embryo adoption has the potential to mess a child up, can it be any worse than the adoption of a born child? In any case, it is better than the deliberate killing of a human being, whether it is still at the embryonic stage of its natural development or further along.
Christy,
Women are not referring to their boyfriends as sperm donors because they don’t value the relationship; on the contrary, they are doing it because they DO highly value the relationship a father has with his child. Deadbeat fathers are relegated to that role due to their own actions (or inaction) and lack of involvement in their child’s life, and are thus behaving just as a sperm donor in the traditional sense does.
Bella: Perhaps some women use “sperm donor” to refer to men who voluntarily give up contact with their children, but I have heard the word used frequently in the context of men who would like to have a relationship with their children and are fighting to be able to do so.
Dan: I agree, embryo donation should be continued, as an intern measure. But I think doing it anonymously is the wrong way to go about it. At the very least, the records should be available to the child when the child reaches adulthood. I know this is complicated by the fact that many of those embryos would have been conceived with donor eggs, but given the fact that so many adopted children or children born with donated sperm are searching for their origins, it is foolish to think this group wouldn’t also want to have access to their origins.
As with Deborah, I agree that embryo adoption is the least of two evils. However, it’s corollary is the creation of “overstock” embryos. The fundamental problem with IVF from a pro-life perspective is that it knowingly produces more embryos than needed. IVF, by definition, includes the destruction of otherwise viable embryos. So between destruction and adoption, it has to be adoption.
That being said, every adoptable embryos will not be adopted and destruction will still occur. So let’s not lull ourselves thinking that we found the solution to sticky ethical issues with IVF. IVF is problematic by definition.
That being said, I have several issues with Christy’s comments because they can be applied just as well to “real” or “usual” adoption and adoptees. And I strongly believe that increasing the visibility and acceptability of adoption is part and parcel of solving the abortion problem. There are several people in my close family and friends circle — I can think of about 15 without trying — who are either adopted children, adoptive parents or parents desperately waiting to adopt. Some of them will spend insane amounts of money to welcome a child into their family. Others will need to fly around the world to fulfill their wish to have children. Every aborted child is wanted. Maybe not by their biological parents, but they are wanted. I don’t think that all the hand-wringing about genetic heritage is worth much to loving families who have adopted or to children who have been adopted.
IVF does not actually knowingly produce more embryos than needed.
There is currently no way of knowing how many, -if any-, of the embryos created during an IVF cycle will be viable and produce a pregnancy (and one that will survive to term).
Some examples:
One couple underwent IVF 3 times and each time only had 2 viable embryos, the first two times did not work but the last time they ended up with twins.
Another couple underwent 1 IVF cycle and had 10 embryos, transferred 2 and got pregnant with twins and then had 8 -potentially viable- embryos remaining.
Another couple underwent one IVF cycle and had an unusual 29 embryos and transferred all of them (over time in multiple cycles) and only the very last embryo resulted in a pregnancy.
Yet another couple underwent 3 IVF cycles and had 25 embryos in total, transferred them all (again over time in many cycles), and did not have a single viable pregnancy.
And IVF does not “by definition” include the destruction of -viable- embryos. You can undergo IVF and not not discard or destroyed a single embryo – as many couples do (in all the above real examples, not a single viable embryo was discarded). Discarding embryos is a personal choice, not a forgone conclusion in IVF treatment.