IVF embryos due to be destroyed in experiments in Australia were last year given a second chance of being born.
These embryos were judged “abnormal” after non-invasive genetic testing by Melbourne fertility services Monash IVF and Repromed. When this test was found to be unreliable, parents were offered the chance to have their embryos transferred to the mother instead of being used in experiments or being immediately destroyed.
Some embryos tested had already been destroyed; however, others were still in the freezer, allowing the parents to reverse their destination should they choose to.
Babies may already have been born following the reprieve, says Dr Helen Watt, a senior research fellow at the Bios Centre, in an article on Mercatornet. She notes that many IVF parents are uneasy about the fate of embryos left in storage, especially if they already have one or more born children whom they know and love.
IVF embryos are given several “gradings” on which their transfer and birth may depend. Citing one UK IVF mother, whose “lower-grade” second-born child might well have been used in experiments, Dr Watt asks: “How would it feel to raise a much-loved son or daughter who nearly ended his or her life on a laboratory slide?”
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “IVF destroys much more life than it creates. In 2017 alone, 174,622 embryos were discarded by IVF in the UK. The number of embryos destroyed between 1991 and 2017 numbered 2,753,560.
“It is not surprising, then, that IVF has engendered a harmful culture that views embryos as essentially expendable, as SPUC’s Daniel Frampton has commented.
“As well as seeking to screen IVF embryos to root out ‘problem babies’, also reported on by SPUC, dystopian medical experiments on such embryos are now a nightmarish reality, harking back to some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
“It is profoundly troubling that the world is repeating that sorry history once again.”
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