As someone who went through the IVF process to conceive our son, the easiest “solution” to me is for the clinics to only fertilize the number of eggs they plan to implant if successfully fertilized. The hard part for us involved the drugs my wife had to take to stimulate the ovaries to overproduce eggs…my part in the sterile cup was easy…
As someone who went through the IVF process to conceive our son, the easiest “solution” to me is for the clinics to only fertilize the number of eggs they plan to implant if successfully fertilized. The hard part for us involved the drugs my wife had to take to stimulate the ovaries to overproduce eggs…my part in the sterile cup was easy and could be done any day of the week. Why not just freeze unfertilized eggs and thaw an appropriate amount to fertilize each time?
The fact that we were creating life in a Petri dish (and I fully believed that) weighed heavily on my soul during the whole process. We were fortunate that one embryo of four successfully developed into our son on the first try. But my mind was always on the remaining embryos as life suspended in a cryogenic state. When we went back in to to try again with the remaining 8 or 9 embryos, some didn’t survive the thawing process and, sadly, none of the remaining viable embryos took. While disappointed, I knew that God was back in control of which infants survived and didn’t…the loss of an IVF embryo being no different than a very early stage miscarriage in terms of faith (obviously not medically).
I just don’t understand the need to overproduce embryos.
From my admittedly limited understanding of IVF protocols, the overproduction of embryos I believe arises from the reality that many embryos simply do not implant in the womb and proceed to gestate naturally. As your own experience seems to indicate, only one in four embryos used in a single IVF procedure successfully gestates, and if this is the rough ratio of successful implantations, then IVF would necessarily require creating more embryos than are technically needed.
Many naturally conceived embryos fail to implant in the uterus, and a fair number also result in early term miscarriage. This is part and parcel of the natural reproductive cycle, and so embryos which fail to gestate successfully do not pose any significant ethical dilemmas that I can see.
The issue is--and the Alabama legislative "fix" does not address this at all--that it is uncertain what should, if anything, be done with the "excess" embryos? Can they be used to facilitate pregnancy and childbirth with another woman? Should they be used in that fashion?
All the "fix" does is indemnify and hold harmless IVF clinics when there is an accidental or wrongful but deliberate destruction of embryos. As Alabama's constitution affirmatively declares that life begins at conception, this "fix" is tantamount to giving IVF clinics a free pass for homicide.
In time, there will be another IVF clinic which accidentally destroys an embryo, killing a nascent human life. The would-be parents of that destroyed human life will challenge the legitimacy of this "fix", and they may prevail, because even without the sanctity of life language in Alabama's constitution, there will come a point whereby allowing IVF clinics to escape consequence for all duties of care (which this law arguably allows) is simply not sustainable as an operation of law. Whether that results in simple repeal of the "fix" or the crafting of a "new and improved Fix" is impossible to say.
But again go back to my original point, if you can successfully freeze eggs then my (male) part that takes place in a quiet room with a ‘90s Playboy Girls of the Big 10 magazine can be done repeatedly at any time. There is an aspect of “just in time production” from the business world that we could seemingly adopt here.
On the surface at least, a "just in time" approach to IVF would be plausible, and perhaps would result in even fewer embryos needing to be stored.
Are there specific medical and scientific reasons for the extra embryos? That I do not know.
I do know that this is yet one more reason why there needs to be a fairly comprehensive debate on the topic, and not just within the halls of Congress.
As someone who went through the IVF process to conceive our son, the easiest “solution” to me is for the clinics to only fertilize the number of eggs they plan to implant if successfully fertilized. The hard part for us involved the drugs my wife had to take to stimulate the ovaries to overproduce eggs…my part in the sterile cup was easy and could be done any day of the week. Why not just freeze unfertilized eggs and thaw an appropriate amount to fertilize each time?
The fact that we were creating life in a Petri dish (and I fully believed that) weighed heavily on my soul during the whole process. We were fortunate that one embryo of four successfully developed into our son on the first try. But my mind was always on the remaining embryos as life suspended in a cryogenic state. When we went back in to to try again with the remaining 8 or 9 embryos, some didn’t survive the thawing process and, sadly, none of the remaining viable embryos took. While disappointed, I knew that God was back in control of which infants survived and didn’t…the loss of an IVF embryo being no different than a very early stage miscarriage in terms of faith (obviously not medically).
I just don’t understand the need to overproduce embryos.
From my admittedly limited understanding of IVF protocols, the overproduction of embryos I believe arises from the reality that many embryos simply do not implant in the womb and proceed to gestate naturally. As your own experience seems to indicate, only one in four embryos used in a single IVF procedure successfully gestates, and if this is the rough ratio of successful implantations, then IVF would necessarily require creating more embryos than are technically needed.
Many naturally conceived embryos fail to implant in the uterus, and a fair number also result in early term miscarriage. This is part and parcel of the natural reproductive cycle, and so embryos which fail to gestate successfully do not pose any significant ethical dilemmas that I can see.
The issue is--and the Alabama legislative "fix" does not address this at all--that it is uncertain what should, if anything, be done with the "excess" embryos? Can they be used to facilitate pregnancy and childbirth with another woman? Should they be used in that fashion?
All the "fix" does is indemnify and hold harmless IVF clinics when there is an accidental or wrongful but deliberate destruction of embryos. As Alabama's constitution affirmatively declares that life begins at conception, this "fix" is tantamount to giving IVF clinics a free pass for homicide.
In time, there will be another IVF clinic which accidentally destroys an embryo, killing a nascent human life. The would-be parents of that destroyed human life will challenge the legitimacy of this "fix", and they may prevail, because even without the sanctity of life language in Alabama's constitution, there will come a point whereby allowing IVF clinics to escape consequence for all duties of care (which this law arguably allows) is simply not sustainable as an operation of law. Whether that results in simple repeal of the "fix" or the crafting of a "new and improved Fix" is impossible to say.
But again go back to my original point, if you can successfully freeze eggs then my (male) part that takes place in a quiet room with a ‘90s Playboy Girls of the Big 10 magazine can be done repeatedly at any time. There is an aspect of “just in time production” from the business world that we could seemingly adopt here.
On the surface at least, a "just in time" approach to IVF would be plausible, and perhaps would result in even fewer embryos needing to be stored.
Are there specific medical and scientific reasons for the extra embryos? That I do not know.
I do know that this is yet one more reason why there needs to be a fairly comprehensive debate on the topic, and not just within the halls of Congress.