Embryo Adoption

The Embryo Dilemma

Los Angeles Times health reporter Shari Roan has a terrific series on “the politics of embryos.” (Bonus: One piece quotes The New Atlantis’s own Yuval Levin.) 

Six years of frustration and heartbreak. That’s how Gina Rathan recalls her attempts to become pregnant.

Finally, she and her husband, Cheddi, conceived a daughter, now 3, through in vitro fertilization. About a year later, she became pregnant with a second child, naturally. Their family was complete.

Then, a year ago, the Fountain Valley couple received a bill reminding them that their infertility journey wasn’t quite over. They owed $750 to preserve three frozen embryos they’d created but hadn’t used....

Finally, the couple paid for three more years of cryopreservation.

“I think about the embryos every day,” Rathan says. “I am their mother. I see them as my own children. They are the DNA from my husband and I. It’s something I worry about, especially when the three years is over and I have to make a decision again.” 

ALSO IN THE LAT: How easy is it to donate embryos to research? Or for adoption? Embryo legislation, state by state.

posted by Cheryl Miller | 9:27 am
File As: Bioethics and Medicine, Stem Cell Research, Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Embryo, Moral Status of the, Embryo Adoption, Frozen Embryos

ART in the News

Million-dollar babies, embryo adoption, and more

• Will same-sex marriage lead to a "brave new world?" Doug Kmiec says yes.
   
• Million-dollar babies: When is early intervention too early?
   
• Don't cry for my fertility.
   
• Cancer patients opt to preserve sperm and eggs.
   
• The British Fertility Society questions the efficacy of embryo screening.
   
• California halts genetic testing by 13 businesses.
   
• Egg shortage: Stem cell researchers want eggs and they want them now.
   
• Fertility tourism: Gay Israeli couples find surrogates in the U.S. and India.
   
• Carolin's babies: Patients throw a party for a fertility specialist who 'really seemed to care.'
   
• Catholic bishops condemn embryonic stem cell research, but might reconsider embryo adoption.

posted by Cheryl Miller | 9:09 am
File As: Assisted Reproductive Technologies, In Vitro Fertilization, Eugenics, Contemporary, Surrogacy, Egg Donation, Embryo Adoption, Frozen Embryos, Third-Party Reproduction