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Home > Education > Students > Treatment of Embryos > IVF | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Questions and Answers on in Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) |
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In vitro is Latin and means ‘in glass’. In vitro fertilisation therefore means fertilisation in a ‘glass’ or petrie-dish. In vitro fertilisation takes eggs from a woman’s ovary and sperm from a man. The eggs and sperm are then mixed together in a dish, where the sperm can fertilise the egg. Sperm Once the eggs are fertilised some of them are then put into the woman’s womb where one or more may implant and continue to grow until the baby is ready to be born. If a man and woman are unable to conceive a child naturally they may seek IVF treatment to try and conceive a baby. A man and woman may not be able to conceive because one of them is infertile. If there is history of a genetic disease or disability in either the man or the woman’s family, they may choose IVF so that any child conceived from their eggs and sperm can go through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD examines the human embryo and checks for disease and disability in the genes. If the gene that carries the disease or disability is found the human embryo is destroyed instead of being implanted and allowed to develop and be born. PGD is also used to find disorders such as Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, which are related to the sex of the child. When a couple have problems conceiving a child it is often said that either the man or the woman is infertile. However, it is very rare for anyone to be completely infertile, the correct term is sub-fertile. When a man is sub-fertile it is usually because he has poor quality sperm. A woman can be sub-fertile for a number of reasons. The Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority (HFEA) which regulates IVF treatment states that for those seeking treatment because the woman is sub-fertile the reasons are as follows: IVF began in Britain in 1978. In 1997 one in 80 children were born through IVF, which is 1.2 per cent of the total number of births2. In the year 1998/1999 there were 8300 IVF babies born3. The HFEA claims that the live birth rate for each IVF treatment cycle is 17 per cent where fresh eggs and fresh sperm are used and 12 per cent where a frozen embryo is used4. There is therefore at least an 83 per cent failure rate. In each treatment cycle lots of eggs and sperm are used to increase the chance of fertilisation. Many embryos may be created but only two will be transferred to the womb. The remaining embryos are then destroyed or frozen for future treatment or experimentation. Even embryos that are put into the mother’s womb have a small chance of survival. In the year 1998/1999 it is estimated that 70,000 human embryos were created, implanted and died before birth5.
In 2000 Costa Rica’s highest constitutional court banned IVF treatment because of the risk of embryo death. The court stated, "the human embryo is a person from the moment of conception"6. The embryo should therefore be treated with the same respect as other human beings and not be subjected to the high risk of death in IVF treatment. When lots of embryos are put into the womb there is the chance that many of them could implant in the wall of the womb and develop until birth. When there are lots of babies growing in the womb it is unlikely that all of them will survive the pregnancy so the doctor may suggest foetal reduction. Foetal reduction means that some of the babies in the womb are aborted to increase the chances of the other baby or babies surviving the pregnancy. Foetal reduction does not respect the equal right to life of all human beings instead it devalues life by saying that one must be sacrificed to save another. However the HFEA have addressed the problem of foetal reduction by introducing new guidelines, which allow only two embryos to be put into the womb at once7. However it has been alleged that some clinics are implanting greater than two embryos to increase their success rates. The number of abortions on the grounds of foetal reduction has therefore fallen, although the abortion statistics do not tell us which reductions were the result of IVF treatment. When too many embryos are created to put back into the womb the remaining embryos may be frozen. These embryos can then be thawed and used for future IVF treatment or can be used for experimentation. The law allows embryos to be frozen for 10 years. A couple who do not want to have a baby now and are worried that they may not be able to conceive when they are older can create an embryo by IVF using their egg and sperm and have the embryo frozen to be used when they decide they want to have a baby. Many embryos are killed as a result of the freezing and thawing process. Those who do survive the process have only a 12 per cent chance of surviving implantation and being born8. Embryos are human beings like you and me. Would we think it was right if our parents decided to have us frozen, suspending our lives at their present point, to then be thawed at our parents' convenience? There are other problems in freezing embryos reported in the audit of Britain’s IVF clinics in 2000: There is also the question of what is to be done with the frozen embryos once the 10-year freezing period is up. PGD already allows parents to choose whether or not to have a child with a disability. Those embryos that do not have the correct genes or who may have a sex-related disease are destroyed. Professor Greg Stock of the University of California, an expert in reproduction, said in 2000 that in the future there would be no need for sexual reproduction, all children would be produced by technology. He said, "We will be able to screen for lots of genetic diseases. We will … be able to take a single cell from an embryo in the lab and calculate … how the child will develop. Effectively, the child will have to pass a test before it is even born. Eventually it will be thought as reckless to have a child without genetic screening as to have a child without pre-natal screening, as happens today"10. But who will decide what tests we have to pass? Will those in control decide that those with genes that give us brown eyes should not be allowed to live? Will we discover in future that certain genes lead to certain personalities and so it might be desirable to only allow those who are both physically fit and mentally gifted to live? Is this so far-fetched? The use of technology in creating human life has led to babies being treated as goods that can be bought. Technology tells us that we can all have babies so we now believe it is our right. This devalues the respect that we have for human life, as it is no longer considered a gift but something that we must have by any means. This is seen by the fact that people are willing to freeze embryos to be used later, when they decide that they want to have a baby. There are many people who suffer great heartache because they are unable to conceive a child. The heartache is made worse by the fact that we have created a society where we all believe it is our right to have children. However there are fertility treatments available to sub-fertile couples that do not have the same ethical and moral objections as IVF. For other couples unable to have children of their own they often find fulfilment through adoption. IVF does not respect the value and status of the human embryo. IVF treatment is carried out regardless of the loss of human life involved and with great risk to the life of the embryo. Each embryo subjected to this threat is not valued or respected. PGD and foetal reduction further undermine the value and respect for human embryos as they are selected and deselected for life. The freezing of embryos shows no respect for the life of the embryo. The frozen embryo’s life is not valued as it is frozen in spite of the increased risk to his/her survival. The frozen embryo’s life is not respected as by freezing him/her, his/her development has been suspended indefinitely, until the parents decide they want their child. 1 Patients Guide to Infertility & IVF www.hfea.gov.uk SPUC Scotland Paper 4 
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Egg
