Embryo adoption

Tori and Sam Earle "adopted" an embryo frozen 20 years earlier by another couple. Matthew Eppinette and his wife chose to forgo IVF out of ethical concerns and have no children of their own.

All are guided by a strong Christian faith and believe life begins at or around conception.

And all have wrestled with the same weighty questions: How do you build a family in a way that conforms with your beliefs? Is IVF an ethical option, especially if it creates more embryos than a couple can use?

"We live in a world that tries to be black and white on the subject," Tori Earle said. "It's not a black-and-white issue."

Faith v. science

The dilemma reflects the age-old friction between faith and science at the heart of the recent IVF controversy in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos have the legal status of children.

The ruling — which decided a lawsuit about embryos that were accidentally destroyed — caused large clinics to pause IVF services, sparking a backlash.

State leaders devised a temporary solution that shielded clinics from liability but didn't address the legal status of embryos created in IVF labs. Concerns about IVF's future prompted U.S. senators from both parties to propose bills aiming to protect IVF nationwide.

Laurie Zoloth, a professor of religion and ethics at the University of Chicago, said arguments about this modern medical procedure touch on two ideas fundamental to the founding of American democracy: freedom of religion and who counts as a full person.

The religious question

"People have different ideas of what counts as a human being. Where to draw the line?" said Zoloth, who is Jewish. "And it's not a political question. It's really a religious question."

For many evangelicals and other Christians, IVF can be problematic, and some call for more regulation and education.

The process is "inherently unnatural," and there are significant concerns relating to "the dignity of human embryos," said Jason Thacker, a Christian ethicist who directs a research institute at the Southern Baptist Convention.

"I'm both pro-family and pro-life," he said. "But just because we can do something, it doesn't mean we should."

Kelly and Alex Pelsor of Indianapolis turned to a fertility specialist after trying to have children naturally for two years. Doctors said her best chance for a baby was through IVF, which accounts for around two percent of births in the U.S.

"I was honestly very scared," said Pelsor, who believes life begins as soon as growth starts after sperm and egg meet. "I didn't know which way to go."

Pelsor and her husband talked and prayed. She began attending a Christian infertility support group called Moms in the Making. She said she started to feel "this inexplicable peace about moving forward with IVF."

Pelsor, 37, underwent a retrieval procedure in March 2021 and got five eggs.

Three were able to be fertilised, and two embryos grew to the blastocyst stage and were able to be frozen. One was transferred to her womb in July 2021, and her daughter was born in March 2022.

"I truly believe she's a miracle from God," said Pelsor, who works for a nonprofit that includes a nondenominational church. "She would not be here without IVF."

Pelsor miscarried the other embryo after it was transferred last year. So she never had to personally face the moral quandary of what to do with extras.

The moral quandrary

Amanda Walker of Albuquerque, New Mexico, did.

She and her husband turned to IVF after trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant naturally for five years and then having a miscarriage.

She wound up with 10 embryos. She miscarried five. Three became her children: an 8-year-old daughter and twins that will turn 3 in July.

That left her with two more, which she agonized and prayed about.

She said she often wonders how many other women find themselves in the same position she did after the egg retrieval, "where they're just naive about the process in the beginning," fertilizing too many eggs and then not knowing what to do.

"We didn't want to destroy them," said Walker, 42. "We believe that they are children."

Considering the ethics of IVF

When Matthew Eppinette, a bioethicist, speaks about IVF, he hears many similar stories.

Couples tell him, "‘Well, we got way into the process, and we had these frozen embryos, and we just never realised that we were going to have to make decisions about this,'" said Eppinette.

He's the executive director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity International University, an evangelical school based in Illinois.

"There's a large educational component to this, both I think within the church, and maybe even within the medical community, to make sure that people are aware of what all is encompassed in IVF."

Dr. John Storment, a reproductive endocrinologist in Lafayette, Louisiana, said he talks with patients about such issues, and some with similar beliefs about when life begins take steps to minimize or eliminate the risk of extra embryos.

For example, doctors can limit the number of eggs they're likely to get by giving less ovary-stimulating medication. Or they can fertilize two or three eggs — hoping that one embryo grows — and freeze any other eggs.

If a few eggs need to be thawed and fertilised later, he estimated that would cost around $5,000 on top of the usual $15,000 to $25,000 for a round of IVF.

Another option is to transfer one or two embryos to the womb immediately without freezing any embryos or eggs. But if that doesn't work, a patient could face another costly egg retrieval.

Thacker said that sort of "fresh" transfer is more ethically permissible than freezing embryos for an uncertain fate, "but I still don't think it's advisable."

Religious scholars say the IVF issue is largely under-explored among evangelical Protestants, who lack the clear position against the procedure taken by the Catholic Church (even if individual Catholics vary in whether they adhere to the church's teachings on reproductive ethics).

Still, Eppinette said most evangelical leaders would advise couples to create only as many embryos as they're going to use and not leave any cryogenically frozen indefinitely.

In his own life, Eppinette goes further, saying "my personal conviction is against IVF."

That's why he and his wife weren't willing to try it when they faced infertility in the 1990s and her one pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

Adopting the embryos created by IVF

Some couples and religious leaders find an answer in embryo adoption, a process that treats embryos like children in need of a home. Read more

• Laura Ungar is overs medicine and science on the AP's global health and science team. She has been a health journalist for more than two decades.
• Tiffinay Stanley is a reporter and editor on The Associated Press' global religion team.

The 'abortion drug' RU486 kills embryos. RU486 or mifepristone destroys the lining of the womb so that the developing embryo is detached, deprived of nutrients, and dies of starvation. A day or two later, another drug called misoprostol is used to induce contractions and to expel the now-dead embryo.

I find it distressing to contemplate that embryos are being killed in this way. I also find it sad that so many Australian girls and women find themselves in a situation in which abortion seems to them to be their best alternative. I would argue that no one ever truly wants an abortion. But when women face an unplanned pregnancy, they can feel trapped, and that abortion is the only escape.

In September last year, an article was published in the Medical Journal of Australia about the use of RU486 in this country. It reported on 13,345 chemical abortions using RU486 between 1 September 2009 and 31 August 2011 at 15 Marie Stopes sites around Australia.

Most women reported medium to heavy bleeding, and moderate to severe cramps. The study also detailed 519 cases in which things did not go as planned. There were 382 cases in which the abortion was not complete, and surgical aspiration of the womb was required. In 83 cases the pregnancy continued.

There were 16 cases of haemorrhage, 11 of which required a blood transfusion. There were four cases of known infection, and 21 cases of suspected infection. One woman died as a result of complications. There have also been at least 15 other RU486-related deaths around the world.

The risk of physical complications after chemical abortion is relatively low, but real. The likelihood of psychological problems — even profound problems like post-traumatic stress disorder — is much greater.

In 2005, Selena Ewing from Women's Forum Australia examined all the articles about abortion that had then been published in peer-reviewed journals over the previous 15 years. From this review of 168 articles she concluded that there is 'substantial evidence of psychological harm associated with abortion ... Ten to 20 per cent of women suffer from severe psychological complications after abortion'. Continue reading

Sources

• Kevin McGovern in Eureka Street
• Image: New Zealand Focus on the Family

Fr Kevin McGovern is the Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics, which is sponsored by Victoria's Catholic hospitals.

Worldwide there have been three clinical trials using embryonic cells, derived from embryos discarded during in vitro fertilisation treatment, and none using adult cells.

A spokesman for the Islamic Medical Association UK said he was astonished that many people did not know about the "high success rate" of adult stem cell technology.

Continue reading

The study showed that babies which grow from thawed embryos are less likely to be born preterm or underweight and have a lower risk of dying in the days after their birth.

Thawed embryos also reduced the risk of bleeding for the mother during pregnancy.

Existing research has also shown there is no difference in pregnancy rate whether fresh or frozen embryos are used, but experts from Aberdeen University reviewed 11 previous studies which followed more than 37,000 pregnancies from implantation of either fresh or thawed embryos to birth, and have concluded differently.

The Aberdeen University experts showed that when frozen embryos were used, there was a

• 30 per cent lower risk of bleeding during pregnancy,
• 30 to 40 per cent less chance of the baby being born underweight,
• 20 per smaller risk of it being born preterm and
• 20 per cent less likelihood of it dying shortly after birth.

Researchers put the increased reliability of frozen embryos down to the delay between removing the eggs from the mother and implanting it back in the mother after fertilisation.

The fact that only the healthiest embryos survive the freezing and thawing process could also increase the likelihood of the pregnancy going according to plan, it was claimed.

The study by Dr Abha Maheshwari of Aberdeen University was published in the Fertility Sterility journal and was presented at the British Science Festival in Aberdeen on Wednesday.

Source

• The Telegraph
• Cambridge News
• Image: The Health Age

In an experiment publicized Oct. 5 in the scientific journal "Nature," scientists created 13 early-stage human embryos that were partial genetic clones of diabetic patients. Each embryo carried an extra set of chromosomes-three instead of two - the embryos would not have been viable if implanted in a womb.

In order for the technique to potentially create usable stem cells to treat diseases, scientists would have to eliminate the extra set of chromosomes to create an embryonic human clone effectively.

Though the study sparked intense media interest, Catholics in the fields of science and bioethics said that the experiment not only failed to mark a significant development but also signaled a blatant disrespect for human life.

"In some restricted sense it is a 'breakthrough' to the extent that it constitutes a tweak to the cloning process," said Fr. Berg, who is also a professor of Moral Theology from New York's St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers. 

However, he added, "in terms of eventual therapeutic uses, it would appear there is little to no benefit."

Fr. Berg explained that human cloning as an avenue for stem-cell based therapies has become "a scientific side-show" in the past few years and is rapidly losing the interest and appeal "that once captivated the biotech world."

Fr. Berg said that the study ultimately provides no practical help for people with illnesses "in any foreseeable future," and that the media coverage surrounding it hearkens "back to the stem-cell hype of the past mid-decade."

"That decade demonstrated in spades that such hype was no service to persons who hope to benefit therapeutically today from stem cell science," he remarked. "The only place that is happening actively is in the arena of adult stem cell research."

Full Article: EWTN News
Image: Scientific American