The photo of George W. Bush holding a month-old baby boy born from a frozen embryo made the front page of newspapers across the country. The emotional image was the president’s way of countering a rebellion among Republicans on Capitol Hill pushing for expanded federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. “The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo,” Bush said as he welcomed to the White House families who had worked through a Christian agency to adopt embryos that might otherwise have been discarded as medical waste.
Some young children sported a pin that said I STARTED AS A STEM CELL. A man in a wheelchair vowed he would never kill his son or daughter even if it meant he could walk again. Using the White House to stage such a spectacle is insulting to those who have been through the process of trying to conceive a baby with the help of technology. Perhaps Bush is blissfully unaware, but many embryos are created--and many die--in order to achieve a single birth through what is known as in vitro fertilization
Many parents, when faced with what to do with these spare embryos would like to donate them to science rather than let them languish indefinitely in storage tanks. The stem-cell bill that passed the House this week and is now before the Senate would free up federal funds for research on these leftover embryos. Bush says he’ll veto the bill. The Christian right’s wrongheaded invocation of religion to restrict science ranks up there with the medieval sanctioning of Galileo because his views conflicted with church doctrine. The notion that adoption is the only viable solution for the estimated 400,000 embryos currently stored in fertility clinics is absurd. As Eric Widra, a physician with the Shady Grove Fertility Center in Maryland points out, adopting an embryo involves all the legal hurdles of traditional adoption without any assurance it will turn into a baby.
Julie Bernstein was 33 when she gave birth to twin boys 18 months ago after four cycles of in vitro fertilization, countless excess frozen embryos and a cost of $50,000. At one point, she had been given so many fertility drugs she produced 20 eggs. Three were implanted in her uterus; one “took,” but she miscarried eight weeks later. The remaining eggs were frozen. When it came time for thawing, a fraction survived but none resulted in a pregnancy. A second cycle brought more disappointment and more leftover embryos. Bernstein convinced her doctor to put four embryos into her uterus instead of the recommended three in an effort to boost her chances that at least one would take. She knew that if all survived, she would have to consider selective reduction or prematurity and birth defects.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8008028/site/newsweek/
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